For Gloria - poetry by Ariel Riveros

Hands grab these wrists, 

forearm tight. 

No stage fright for age.

Struck for breathing, 

feeder-phytes meal me. 

Lungs arteries tackled 

A room passed by.

A 1940s seminary, plaster of Paris 

grappling between the sage wall damp, 

polished light wooden door frame. 

A phone diary with my

mother's named pencilled

in cursive forty years ago.

Brass hinging, flagging in 

strong wind for one god 

talking high fortification. 

Pudgy palms hooked à 

my forearms. Is it it? 

Remove the mask. 

It is now time tomorrow 

to gather in renaissance paintings. 

Vanishing sets of scale and frame 

and serene corpse like the whole world 

was alpine. 

We are doctors after a death

flat late in waiting rooms. 

Sunlight is mistaken for lightning.

All bloom of living body domed

by sense and sound scored.