Status

To steer at thirty-seven 
miles per hour with the 
supposition, a knowledge 
trusting others won’t be turning 
too; to turn at fifty with 
a foot on the break; to glean  
the car that turns left on a red, 
or the one that honks and hides 
somewhere behind: how not to see 
these signings for passage. How 

not to see, despite the dark, 
the limit: a velvet curtain, 
for the bathroom, the one friends 
had gone through. A girl whips it 
shut, a man afflicts my wrist  
and arm and lifts me away. 
How not to see, to recollect 
that this is what I’m given: 
boy material; boy, materials.  
I forget that I am this. 

How not to remember, years 
ago, when the roof was on 
fire. I was carried down  
the stairs with my toy sword 
and while we turned my toy sword 
fell on the stairs. How not to see 
the fumes curling. My toy sword 
was returned by a fire- 
fighter. The golden handle  
looked dim; the fire tarnished.

Jesús Marcelo is from Monterrey, México, and is currently living and writing in Appleton, Wisconsin. He has recently published poetry in fsm.