THREE POEMS by MATTHEW TAVARES
are we ever more than the light we make
my aunt taught me about death
while catching fireflies in her garden.
there was no grand metaphor
no clever simile to describe
the relationship between
death and the light that appears
when the bugs contract their abdomens.
it was the way she tightened
the lid of the jar, sealing off the outside air
with the same indifferent arrogance of a god
giving them only a finite amount of time
before all the air inside was gone. three days
she said, three days and they’ll be dead as dirt.
when she was finished and ready
to go inside the house
she handed me the mason jar
which hummed like a galaxy.
each insect was a tiny explosion
as if the light was being transferred
between them, an electric continuum of fire.
panicked, i tried to open the jar, but my
young hands could not loosen
the lid that was slowly suffocating them.
i squeezed and pulled till my hands lost feeling
& then i dropped the jar on the wet ground—the fireflies
trapped inside a house of mirrors and failing light
fiercely illuminating Georgia’s red dirt.
the buzzing was blinding and the glowing
sang music and they continued this way
unaware or unbothered by the fact that
one day this body won’t work, that a radiance
will fade and never return and all that will remain
is a wretched husk, breathless, still and dark.
Sisyphus
One thing about eternal damnation,
there’s at least a purpose.
No dizzy mornings spent
wandering pebbled paths
of a garden wondering what
exactly am I doing here in this
moment which carries itself like a
grey cruel dust. After a gust of wind
the stone is no longer a stone
but a mass of futures I
no longer have to choose from.
Haul this rock how you will,
its descent consumes you all the same.
Suicide Note as Lipogram
Tomorrow morning a child will wake up
next to a cold body, foam will harden
around their father’s mouth and the baby
will cry for three nights until a neighbor knocks.
Next week a bomb will be dropped
on a city in a desert where clean water is a luxury,
those left alive will be consumed by grief
those left alive will swear to their revenge.
Years from now, people will sit across tables
asking each other who makes these rules, who
schedules these massacres, these famines,
these days of bleak endless nothings.
Who can rationalize this horror
who can alleviate this weight which,
like an ocean, has become too heavy to hold up.
Tonight, God, I want to look at you,
touch your lips slowly with my hands
and explain to you all your failures.
Matthew Tavares (he/him) is the translator of Wendy Barker’s Over Roads, Under Moons, forthcoming from Alabrava Press. His work has appeared in Allegory Ridge‘s Anthology Aurora, High Noon, Voices de la Luna, and Texas Books in Review. He is currently pursuing an MFA from Our Lady of the Lake University.