Transgression

“The gaping mouth slit heart from mind. Between the two eyes in her head, the tongueless magical eye and the loquacious rational eye, was la rajadura, the abyss that no bridge could span. Separated, they could not visit each other and each was too far away to hear what the other was saying. Silence rose like a river and could not be held back, it flooded and drowned everything.” (Gloria Anzaldúa) 

Each day we turn water into wine and back into water 
but our cycle denies at the outset the possibility of nectar 
(the soul’s wings are bound by the world’s assumptions) 

“Pick your battles,” they say. 
(they mean, “don’t pick this one”) 

They beat paths of rationalization 
into submission 
with granite walls raised on each side 
(arrival and departure sketched in stone) 

They prepare bullet points with the  
precision of trained assassins 
the shape of thoughts circumscribed  
by the casings that carry them 

Caught in the flytrap of how we’ve always done it 
the brute force of our language betrays the desperation  
of the soul’s missives of peace: interrupted 
writhing, twisting, grasping  
for release 

Daring us to lay down soft blankets for the words left out of the poem 
to make real the heavy imaginaries not yet enlivened 
to dissolve the crown of thorns 
and scatter its brilliance into prism.