Jose Angel Araguz

Summer afternoon, fixing to storm.

I can almost hear the hands adjusting the clouds,
fingers fastening each drop
to its line of air.

When I pluck a blade of grass and twist it
between my fingers,

a smell rises,
clean, clandestine.

I begin to feel I am being watched.

I look around and hear only the heat
under the dark clouds
crackle.

You could hear the trees
when I brushed my hair,

in each downward stroke
cypresses.

My child once asked if she could hide there
during a storm,

that the color was darker
than when she hid under the bed,

said that where it was dark
nothing was there.

Now where my hair once was
short strands
bow.

I see them in the mirror.

Behind me,
dark figures

slack,     
crouch—

pray,
pray.