PART I. ISTINA (f)
I want to write you this poem
but I can’t.
Each time I look
to another place.
Where did I go
when I retreated back into myself?
Leaving you to build your island
and wait for the news
that I was never coming back.
You cried
and told me you wanted
to be held. I was busy writing
a little play.
My nonsense, my simulacra
it consumes me.
I began this
wanting to write about your eyes.
I wanted to apologize
for using them
as mirrors to see my self in.
I wanted to make the connection
between your istina
and my truth.
How now it makes
so much sense: the feminine case.
How truth can never belong to men.
But it did.
Now, the line of your neck
is the most lonesome place on earth
for me,
and the memory of your voice
rings the air in an empty room.
