J. Oscar Polanco

Date of Birth: 1/13/84
Location: Llano, TX
Email: j_oscar_p@hotmail.com


TO THE ROSE

For Rachel

I want to remove the red from you,
to see the white which remains beneath the eves.

I place you in my lint-laden pocket
because sometimes it is all I am,
because sometimes it is all I wish to be.

I want to know the songs of youth once more,
the hymns of small birds who are the shades of lost notes.

And the garden does have its silences
just as you hold thorns on your branch.

My heart is a collection
of the birds without sounds
whose places I mark
with the petals of your fingertips.

Forgive me,
I want to remove your red.
Forgive me,
I want to see you bare.

I want you a bird without sound.

Because the red of you makes
the blood in me ache.

Because the silences of the garden
serve the fingertips of your petals.

Because sometimes it is all I am.

Because sometimes it is all I wish to be.

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