from 'Variations on Adonis'

On the dance floor, the heat of your body played a game

              with the heat of my hands.

Our skin was young, fleeing its history lessons

              toward its animal wish.

Your fingers on my neck, we made a little cove for our breath

              in the crowd, as speakers spilled their electric seas

              and the floor pulsed like an artery under us.

 

And for a while we were only our bodies

              and my field of vision was your hair against our cheeks

              and exchanged mouths.

 

Outside, in our winter jackets, faces flushed, holding hands,

we exchanged middle names, shared a cigarette and waited

for a cab that years later became a little boat in a dream I woke from,

alone, on a road that lead to an unknown shore

              under a sky full of questions.

Jesús Castillo

Jesús Castillo was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. He holds a B.A. in Literature from U.C. San Diego and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His first book, a long serial poem titled Remain​s,  was published by McSweeney's in 2016.

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