ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Steven Sanchez’ debut book, Phantom Tongue (Sundress Publications, 2018), was chosen by Mark Doty for the Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award. A CantoMundo Fellow, Lambda Literary Fellow, and winner of the inaugural Federico García Lorca Poetry Prize, his poems appear in journals that include Agni, American Poetry Review, and Poet Lore.
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
The Gunman
To My Body
June 25, 2025
Grief Is the Raven
Hanford, CA
Do you recall, years ago, how a flock
descended on this town, caws and shit
and black feathers inescapable, how
their weight sagged cables into a grin
so pointed it might snap?
We wanted to kill them all,
to shoot them.
Instead, we released a single falcon
whose notched beak could pierce
a neck. I learned, that summer,
that ravens congregate around their dead,
that it’s easier to chase something away
rather than live with it: a handle of vodka
split between me and a boy who taught me
how to remove bruises with a spoon,
to kiss a neck softer
with the inside of my lower lip —
the only boy who met my grandmother.
Mijo, is he your boyfriend?
He’s a nice boy
This is the last time I heard her speak.
For years, I avoided seeing her, ashamed.
For years, the aphasia set in.
I almost remember her voice’s clarity
but the last time I heard her is so much louder:
her eyes widened and her voice flew
from her mouth and barreled past words
I couldn’t hear, but felt
like the brush of a wing.
Perched on a power line, thousands
of volts surge between your talons.
You remember a person’s face,
if they shooed you
or fed you.
I’m sorry it took so long to return
with crackers in my pocket. Thank you
for the pebbles and silver gum wrappers.
Your gifts glint like my grandmother’s vanity,
her favorite rings and necklace
placed on her one last time, her hair dyed
and highlighted, her face beat for the gods
because she’d never be caught dead
barefaced in public. And I remember
something else:
she was so light when we lifted her.
I wondered if she was still there.
Apart from my brother (also Queer), my grandma was the only person in my family to immediately respond to my Queerness with love and support. She loved my Queerness before I even knew how to do that myself — I didn’t really comprehend that until I began writing this poem. Also, my family truly believed she would haunt us if we buried her without dying her hair, doing her make up, or appropriately accessorizing her. When writing this, I needed to make sure that everybody knew how glamorous she was, especially on that day.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
