i measure in terms of windows:
the sky is reflective, see-through, square
your hands are bays protruding out into light

in two panels
we stained colors
prisms of pigments

mini fragments
turned chards

i am on one side of the glass
looking through to you on the other
you are quiet, pale faced, mirroring
the blowing trees

He was the epitome of masculinity with roots, buried deep
Gasping for air in the desert sands of Guadalajara, Mexico. From
Across the table he loved me. Standing in the kitchen he loved me.
Whispering the secrets of the world in poorly translated idioms.
I was nineteen when he picked up the couch. His dark skin
Looked so beautiful against the cream leather, its nylon seams
Blending into his own, the worn armrests unfolding into the hollow hills of his
Rolling shoulders. I held my breath as he slung it over the railing.
I swear it had feathers because it landed with a violent sigh seconds
after you would expect it to, two stories down. Several paychecks later he bought
a replacement but I never fully recovered, never properly mourned the loss
of the couch, our couch. Just gazed at it with envy as it sat free in the parking lot.
In my ear he breathes something about paradise. You don’t go to it, you bring
it with you. I remember this as I study the grout between the tiles. Picking me up he loves me.

Lena's Sonnet

She left before her scent could linger alive in your sheets
Before the sounds of soft things seeped through
And resonated like I resonated like I seeped
Pouring slow into the empty pores of you

Had she stayed, would you have kept her
While my portrait drips through the foggy window
The woman with piano key fingers
With little girl eyes, dark lashed and hollow

Reach, and touch the cold outlines of my veins
As they spindle through my body into yours
Can you feel them pulsing through the rain
Encapsulated rivers pooling at your bedroom door

You turn, a moment, hold your hand up to the glass
The clouds still drip for me, and you for me, at last

Haiku

One thousand paper
Cranes for my grandmother but
She died at fourteen.

Frame

I've seen her
stooping over the creosote
tracing the veins pulsing
through her wrist,
frail,
the bony planes of her desert hands.

And maybe she's seen me, too.

Pensive in the coolness
cataloging the breaths that
blow through her chest;
exhale
marking each one with a scratch on the wall.

waiting

to be Freed.

Remember Me.

lay yourself upon the grass.
listen to the silence of the earth
and remember.
let the memories flow like water,
trickling through the cerebrum,
pooling behind your heavy lidded eyes.

Do you remember, Do you remember me?
the labyrinth whorls of your fingerprints,
breathing in coffee and mint from the
puckered pores of your muddy spring skin.

loved one.
two children leaning against a tree trunk
drinking lemondade and
poking at our scabs.

Loved one.
two fish breathing bubbles of oxygen
under the glassy surface
of the deep, deep Pacific.

Lay yourself across the grass.
listen to the silence of the earth
and remember.

Efrain Oquendo

sweet
dripping through the roots
wading in the waters
of the earth.

beneath the cherry tree
you hold my feet
gently
between the rough palms
of your mestizo hands.

I sigh
and it is music
that you strum along to
with your heart.

Spring.
We are a melody to which
the ground turns
green to.
life happens.
I kiss you and my soul smiles.