The Year After

footprints        burning           on the trail

of squashed                  mangoes          flanked

by the brown               skin                  of coconuts

will lead us nowhere but memory

bites                 like a crow pecking at god's hands      under

the shadow      of mourning— flags

ripped and tattered                  like old

hopes               or the carrion              flesh

of promises                  in the blood

spilling             mouth             of a ghost

dog— we hound                                 for food

(who locked up the food?)

as if tragedy                 had coffee

with us                        yesterday

but

it's been a fucking year

and we awake              ill at ease

among the dead           and all

                                    the sadness

                                    in the world

Elidio La Torre Lagares holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. He is the author of Wonderful Wasteland and other natural disasters, published by the University of Kentucky Press in 2019 and  shortlisted for the Juan Felipe Herrera Poetry Prize. His poetry collection Aguacerando earned him a shortlist nomination for the Paz Prize for Poetry 2022, an honor co-presented by the National Poetry Series and the Miami Book Fair. He is currently working on a new novel. Also, last year he published his novel Correr tras el viento (Chasing the Wind) with Editorial Verbum, Madrid.