Ayrton Lopez

1 Poem

Scarlord

Every body has facsimiles,

brightly-sewn puppets and paper plants that you might wear or water accidentally.

Doting on pins and needles like bent mosquito limbs, I survey these footsoldiers of cryptic metamorphosis.

* * *

Platelets and ballasts and gathered empire.

The day’s activities stacked and hammered still. The silence is whitening,

it threatens to erase everything I’ve created.

* * *

The way spoken words refract off my veins and ribs and armor. The reason the sun hides behind rumbling clouds.

There’s food for cells in the solarium. Cut me another legion, please.

Bio

Ayrton Lopez is a poet of Mexican and Ecuadorian descent who lives and works in San Francisco. He formerly hosted the spoken word poetry show "The Red Wheelbarrow" on KZSU 90.1 FM. His poems have recently appeared in the Notre Dame Review, the Spoon River Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, and Rust + Moth.