MiPOesias Magazine

OCTAVIO R. GONZALEZ

Octavio R. Gonzalez is a Dominican-American poet from Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the East Village. He earned his BA in Literature from Swarthmore College, and is currently a candidate for the MA in English at Penn State University. Some of his poetic and prose works appear in Perspectives: A Journal of Critical and Creative Writing, The Richmond Review, The Morpo Review, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and Small Craft Warnings (Swarthmore College). He has a chapbook in progress. You may find some of his musings at ruintheimage.net.

American Sign Language

There's nothing about you I don't like:
candy-red, glistening fingers.
Of course, you say, now give up this.

The waitress pours coffee for one.
How we sat, waiting for words

(there's nothing about you I don't like).

We had breakfast and pretended
wherever we sat, the sun shone.
Of course, you said, now give up this.

Walking on the beach of my back
the softness turned to hunger, silence.
There's nothing about you I don't like—

your face slips by me in the shower
when I'm only being myself, getting clean.
Of course, you say, now give up this.

At Union Square or Blue & Gold,
afterwards, signing the words, whistling
There's nothing about me you don't like.
Of course, I say, now give this up.

As Hieroglyph It’s Not So Bad

She gave birth to two babies. They were not Siamese.

I want to speak with brokenated
tongue. Words milk like
teeth. Words to be songs.

I have a mouthful of speech

your sour eloquent
breath receives but doesn’t
retain. We breathe into ourselves

whether brokenated or simple.

If I had an ego to peddle
with. Breath blew
more desert. Songs made thirst.

Like you’re not syncopated either

though you pretend your shoes aren’t
missing or mouth isn’t
lost in Revelation.

Memories are photographs. And we were always skinnier.

Once childhood has a home we can never leave
willingly. Our dreams are ectopic pregnancies.
And the two babies? Not Siamese.

Wandering and opening in my home’s crevices