K. Hartless

More Than These

Image: “El Camino de Esmeralda” by Danelle Rivas. The wondrous magical journey is chronicled in Esmeralda’s dress that explodes into a whirlwind path of destiny and the personal experiences of youth, passion, and desire.

More Than These

More than Tita’s keys
and the Ferris wheel birthmark
below my Havana Gold knee.
More than secrecy,
smoky Cohiba eyes,
more than these.

More than my country and
the pale-necked galliwasp
in my chest that is striking as
hummingbird hues of dawn
streak colors like lightning.
Ay, more than right or wrong.

More than the striped tiger
decapitated in its youth.
The subway of my future commute.
My mariposa orchid blooms.
More than light,
and more than truth.

A candela burning, but
I no longer mourn.
La Milagrosa no more.
Blind, but now I see.

My uterus, my prized possession.
My most sacred part,
no more concessions.

© 2022 | K.Hartless

This poem features the rich artwork of Danelle Rivas. Be sure to view her entire gallery for further inspiration. “El Camino de Esmeralda” is shared here with the author’s permission.

24 comments

  7. I love the way you’ve connected your powerful words, and this powerful and gorgeous painting to create an experience for the reader that is multidimensional and courageous. No more concessions, indeed. 💜

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thank you so much, Jeff. She wears her story, and it was a privilege to try and pen it with some accuracy and courage. I’m so glad you enjoyed this one. It was made doubly special by connecting with the artist. 💜

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s