At Lúpulo’s Tavern

by Sergio A. Ortiz

Soft jazz, hugs, kisses,
promises and fingers intertwined.
Me, a young man afraid of the dark.
You, a man rattled by light. You dragged me
to the back between twilight and twilight.
A waiter arrives, I ask for a hot chocolate,
you order red wine, take off your coat,
put it on the armchair. I lay my hand
on trembling places. Lights lower.
Roof rises. Chair collapses.
Coat falls, the chocolate, the wine.
Outside, the rain. Tourists. Suitcases.
The smell of Burger King.
A poster advertising Cialis.

Sitting on my corpse

I’m picking up
the pieces of my life,

disabled, winged
in agony,

the latent bottom
of my illness.

Bodies like mine
               born
                              worn
flesh and bones
already ancient.

When the dead talk about sex

trees resurrect from their flesh.
They’re storytellers of clandestine love,
barbs of rivers that penetrate,
and those delivered to the sea.
They meander desires,
pantheons smell of cum.
They evaporate kisses in the
humidity of coffee plantations,
in canyons, and banana fields.
The dead talk about sex
and invent new caresses
on the altars of the dead,
offer flower collars in memoriam
of the pleasures of the phallus.

BIO

Sergio A. Ortiz is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016 Best of the Net nominee. He won 2nd place in the 2016 Ramón Ataz Annual Poetry Competition sponsored by Alaire publishing house. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in FRIGG, Tipton Poetry Journal, Drunk Monkeys, and Bitterzeot Magazine. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.