National Poetry Month: Sheryl Luna

"Mercury in Retrograde"

(Sheryl Luna)

The day ended badly with a broken ankle,

a jinxed printer, and a dead car. The dry yellow grass

against the sunset saved me. Roosters

pranced across a lawn of shit, proudly plumed

in black feathers, bobbing before the gray goats.

It was the first day I saw god in the quiet,

and found a mustard seed was very small.

There I had been for years cursing “why?”

and all the gold in the sun fell upon me.

There was a white mare in the midst

of brown smog, majestic in the refinery

clouds. Even the radio wouldn’t work!

My mother limps and her hair falls out.

The faithful drive white Chevy trucks

or yellow Camrys, and I’m here golden

on the smoking shock-less bus.

I lost language in this want, each poem

dust, Spanish fluttered

as music across the desert, even weeds

tumbled unloved. The police sirens seared

the coming night, dogs howled helplessly

sad.

Lo I walk the valley of death, love

lingers in my hard eyes. Mañana never

comes just right. I mend myself in the folds

of paper songs, ring my paper bells

for empty success. Quiero Nada,

if I sing long enough, I’ll grow dreamlike

and find a flock of pigeons, white under

wings lifting awkward bodies like doves

across the silky blue-white sky.

    "Mercury in Retrograde" appears in Sheryl Luna's first collection of poetry, Pity the Drowned Horses (2004).