08-18-2025
Matthew Tavares
GALLERY FOR THE NEWLY DAMNED
1
Staring at the dead snake
on the sidewalk—intestines
fireworks in a gray fog, I realize
I am the same age as Apollinaire
when he died, choking
on his own lungs.
2
My bride bit an apple in March—
decided to walk into a forest.
Foraging for insects
and dead things to douse
her hunger; she came back
one morning during August,
through a door
crawling on all four legs.
3
I would like to give my father
the morning light in a glass
jar—painted black to reflect
nothing back to him.
But what I have are the ashes
of a clock I set on fire
to move through an empty cave.
4
There are holes in the canoe. Measure
your lungs in smoke. Rectify my burning
as your forgiveness. I have tried
to rationalize everything: we are only
so much.
LORCA'S PALM LEAVES
I traded
a handful
of weed
with a man
begging
on the street
for a palm cross
that looked
like Lorca
though a heart
not Jesus
was nailed
to the cross
and a rose
not blood
centered
this symbol
of surrender
yet still
I thought
of Jesus
as he walked
into Jerusalem
the palm leaves
under his feet
yet still
I thought
of Lorca
crucified
on a hillside
his heart
made of leaves
tossed
into the wind
and now
the man
finding shade
under a tree
weaves my sins
in exchange
for something
that will only
amplify
the hunger
IN SEARCH OF VENUSIAN OCEANS
It takes thousands of years
of rainfall to produce an ocean.
Which makes me think of all
the lifetimes found in a wave
which makes me feel closer
to my own reckoning.
I imagine the places
my consciousness could end up:
a grove of orange trees
a stone beneath a waterfall—
but how often do we end
where we began.
There was once a time
when we believed oceans
adorned the planet Venus,
but science
as with all our greatest stories,
has corrupted this too.
How I could reawaken there
surrounded by ancient rains,
how I could walk head down
against the waves in one direction
and always end up somewhere else.
-from IN SEARCH OF VENUSIAN OCEANS, celebrated with the author's permission and selected by PoemoftheWeek.com Founder and Editor, Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
Matthew Tavares is the author of the chapbook In Search of Venusian Oceans (Defunkt Press). His work has appeared in High Noon, Texas Books in Review, Windward Review, and CAGIBI. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing, English Literature, and Social Justice from Our Lady of the Lake University. He is currently a high school English teacher, and a Lecturer of English.
