Courtesy of Tim Geers/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED).
After “One Last Love Poem” by Juan J. Morales
Aside from the time they might’ve
Been casting curses for others,
Helping priests for the Inquisition
Banishment and cleansings
Bruxaria, common for some to even work.
They believed in escape, like a wish
Desiring to melt, a trick to gain forgiveness
Or a stretch for comfort, to ward against
Gain. There are only so many ways to hold
Someone. We dip and swirl around Bixby Park
Behind the band shell, all hand and touch
And feel. A forgiveness, new, a long-guarded
Education gained, we step. We specify
and depart along a blissful pitch of smoke,
stepping at the mere spell mention of rejection.
We are not foes and yet we flee toward others
who are all together more literate than we are.