Peter Garibay

La Luna y El Mar

Who would’ve dreamt the Sea could drown?

He does,

every night when he prays to the sky.

With lovesick hands in a forlorn prayer

as he holds his midnight mass.

His fragile sanity presented as tithe,

he tosses and turns;

the heaving tide

floods every breath 

before it's born.

She drapes herself 

over her altar of clouds,

sidles into her stratus,

and from above she teases 

her gentle rays along every crest.

With lunar fingers she flirts,

as she sculpts and swirls her hand

into his every crashing thought.

Pulling him close,

only to shove him back down 

into his own suffocating riptides.

For the seasick Sea

is bent by none but one. 

and this is how the Sea drowns.

The people, powerless from the shore 

witness in horror

and in hushed whispers grieve:

“La Luna está fuera esta noche.

Reza por el Mar.”

The Moon is out tonight.

Pray for the Sea.

Hop Off Your Crucifix

Would you still worship? 

If church shoulders droop 

And burned out walls smell only of rot? 

If I met you halfway with communion in hand,

though stale, 

and wearing time’s old white woolen coat? 

Christ fell off the crucifix. 

and Mother Mary is missing her arms,

Painted angels baptize the floor from above.

Could you still worship? 

Men have been loved for less.

Even the saints were sinners.

Hop off your crucifix,

Christ come down.

There’s no one here worth saving.