Feature image by Frida Kahlo. Roots, 1943. Oil on canvas.

Listen:

It is true you deserve to die

Some stuffed gull suspended
Above the benefit dinner

A miracle knew you
Made you human

Whatever you touched grew more like itself

Unsatisfied with itself
(So you touched it all)

And this they called the Lambada
Explained the boy

When he crawled on top

Your sick front admit it
Vaguely affected by the tide

And emptied
How quickly a house

Falls into disarray

Not knowing a dance
Could be survived

Or a grip so easily
Unfastened

Torn as you were at the root

Roberto Montes

Roberto Montes is the author of I Don't Know Do You named one of the Best Books of 2014 by NPR and a finalist for the 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry from The Publishing Triangle. His poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Literary Review, Whiskey Island, Nepantla: A Journal for Queer Poets of Color, Apogee Journal, and elsewhere. A new chapbook, Grievances, is forthcoming from the Atlas Review TAR chapbook series in late 2016.