Ray GONZALEZ

FIERCE GOD

—after Octavio Paz

Out of the adobe
came a dark figure
singing of the morning.
It was I in another
time where I built
the walls to stay,
but they fell into
the earthquake.

Out of the passion
of the feet and hands,
I explored the suspect,
but he died of thirst.
I remained senseless
and walked under
the arches, waited
for hands to mark
the opening in the earth,

my actions forgiven
when I found
no escape,
only the smell.
of goat meat
frying in the dark
and open land.

Out of the whispers
crawled a thing
searching for water.
It was not I,
but the animal
of no shape that
swallowed my sins

and spit them back,
the glue holding
the house up
for 500 years,
the creature drinking
from the fountain,
screaming to be heard.

Out of those cries
came a fear that
took families away,
replaced the years with
rain and moratoriums,
loves and magnitudes
fit for a wiser
and negotiating man.

When I stood alone,
the shell of the house
flowered into a body
I gave up on
centuries ago,
its beautiful hair
longer than the river
threatening my kingdom
with its human gaze.

Out of that look,
months without
a soul as the walls
of mud slapped a limit
on where I could live,
what I could see and say,
how often I emerged
from the black corner
where the altar was
erected centuries ago,
the spot where my knees
fall without prayer or
an answer that comes
from me.

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