Poem by Andrés Briseño

the rain behind my window falls down into my eyes

I'm holding still the newspaper, thinking of the weather, about the dying summer.

is there a summer in your grave, beloved grandfather?

how cold is death?

because I'm here, so sad for you, and you are so deep, so far, missing a warm blanket for your trembling legs

and I have only paperhands, with sports news as fingers and bitten nails covered with ink.

but paper doesn't stop coldness

ink doesn't cover solitude

perhaps, right now, your old body sprouts white flowers, full of your flesh, showing off small petals

what's a petal, old man?

is it your eyes?

your kidney?

your white hair between my hands?

your soft forehead after my kiss?

empty newspapers hang around Canada, looking for the next rainy cloud

but in Mexico, in the small cemetery of your village, angels wait for fertile tears to feed heart-flowers, to put them in a basket, to strip their leaves before god, who, bored, spends his time stealing butterflies from my orchard.


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Andrés Briseño Hernández (Jerez, Zac., 1981) Estudió Letras en la Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas. Ha publicado en diversos diaros, y en 2001 en la antología Premio Trópico de Cáncer a la Creatividad Literaria, mismo que ganó en 2002. Publicó el libro Letras Blancas Letras Negras. En 2007 participó en el Taller Regional de Aguascalientes, impartido por Mario Bellatín. El presente es su primer poema escrito en Inglés.