Poetry – Page 13

Birthmark by Ivan Calderon

I wear a stain over my eye;
a purple splotch that sprouts prickly hairs
like a fat tick laid
dead on my face.
When I was young,
I knew people couldn’t unsee
the crisped clump of torn fat
like a scorched marshmallow,
a mold-chewed blueberry,
shit over my eye.
But now, I look at my dried paint stain
as if it’s a crown,
hot under the mountain sun.
My spine aligns like a spear
As if my post-natal scar
Is purple velvet,
an amethyst geode,
panther’s fur.
I shift through streets,
creep like a jaguar
and prepare to prowl.
A rolling gulley of shadow
lies behind
those who will follow
in a cluster through jungle,
in lines through swamp,
in rows through the cordillera,
wave a banner
stained by dried mud
cinders
caked with the hot stench of rifles
and wildly blasted flesh.
As a purple veil is cast over sunset,
those who see my mark
as the melted lead
of the revolution
bellow my name,
as if
the wind moved steppes to say:
El Morado