By Sonia Gutiérrez

WHAT POEMS DO

Let me tell you what poems do.
With letters hanging
from their chipped beaks
and sharp talons,
poems with their immense wings
fly over tempestuous oceans,
where an eye of a hurricane
awaits them—swallows
and spits them out.

Because some poems,
I must confess,
are difficult to chew.

They arrive at their destinies
worn out with their wings
plucked by the winds
disguised as paper birds.

And once more,
century after century
before the eyes of the reader,
their feathers sprout and words
take flight.

 

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Sonia Gutiérrez’ work has appeared in Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Change, edited by Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodríguez (Best Poetry Book for the 2016 Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards), La Jornada Semanal (México City), and Tres en Suma (Madrid).