Río Colorado
Rocío Carlos
Directive: swallow salt
and the sound of it/ the us of breath
the word nosotros.
In a desert valley my kin swallow the river
(the clay floor, the salt lifted up from yesterday)
you stand in the dry bed/ what a word, bed, for graves.
Que suena: son huesos/ es mi aliento
así nacimos en una sequía.
Diluvio: the word we forgot to remember
where floods find us/ cuna lagrimosa
how each/ other is we
we/we, this/this
this: what hollow what bounty
(in beds— meaning graves)
the abundance of a navel of a collarbone
clavicle you say or your fingers say because
where is the mouth:
everywhere.
~~~~~
Rocío Carlos is the author of A World Below (Mindmade Books, 2014) and co-author of ex her pt (wirecutter collective, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Chaparral and Angel City Review. Selections of her collaborative work in progress with Rachel McLeod Kaminer, Attendance, appear in Cultural Weekly. She lives and works in Los Ángeles.