An honorable mention from the 2024 Bird in Your Hands Contest
Awake with Metztli
Somewhere, a dream is born
with a boy and his doll.
a pairing delicate and playful
enough to conjure the stormy faces and
bent brows of saints from celestial kingdoms.
The dream is aborted by a father’s shame,
who forces the boy to leave the doll in the car.
Somewhere, a dream is born
when the boy trumpets his crystalline laughter,
like the songbird who knows only to sing.
The red bravado of a Mexican father
hurtles toward the dream to say
his voice is feminine,
a word the boy never heard before,
but it must be bad.
Joy’s gotta hold a mirror up now
in case (s)he goes out looking bad.
This is where dreams of love go when
they have no breast to nurse from,
no air to help them ripen:
In the cracks of small towns where
the burning bodies of two adolescent boys in a car fog the windows.
It’s the first time for one of them; he’s on his knees
in the confession room en la Iglesia de Santa Teresa.
It is not dark enough in here to erase a sin
nor the queerness of a shoulder
made in your image, Lord.
Lord, on quiet nights, we discussed You,
and it felt like hiding.
My man’s trying fingers
glided over my ribs like a
guitar after its glory,
our ballad of consolation.
How do you articulate the pressure
between two boy’s bodies
who detest each other for
nightmares they share?
I called it love.
At my first time in Danza Azteca,
I danced in copal incense and to the song of the Owl,
Prayer in motion
The ayoyote shells around our calves,
rattling us to meditation.
I learned the night is Metztli.
We thanked Her for Her night, silky womb
which is feminine,
feminine spirit, cosmic heartbeat
and pregnant with feminine love.
When hearing this,
a cry erupted from a boy buried
with a dream somewhere inside me.
Roberto Efren Osorio, Central Valley native from McFarland, California, is a Mexican-American writer studying literature at UC Santa Cruz. His words explore the tapestry of queer experience, cultural identity, and rural life, and have earned him publication in the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, The Red Wheelbarrow, TWANAS Press, and others. You can find him on Instagram (@robsorio) and Twitter/X (@gaymazapan).
