Deadliest month of Summer prayer wanes
in full moon, blasting nets of light
glimpsing on the world as a spur
of sunlight dews the nightly cold. In April,
we live by the rule of painting rural ceilings in sky
as the wasps take heed of warmth
blessed in their construction of nests.
Sky, is a blue one fears to condone,
too vast and endless, too beautiful
and senseless while the bees work
in obsession. Light grounds the blessed
beasts to warmth. The heart of a bee,
in a hive, stored in a queen who whispers:
protect me from the enemy my children,
surround them like light, and from light, feed
their wasping heat.
Dominique Santos
I killed the ants out of trust
that they will never haunt my dreams
unless they were willing to cancel
or wait out on all the other nightmares
waiting in line—
when they go inside that little mound
I know the queen waits in hunger
to be fed – all my candy wrappers scraped
by their little mouths to make royal jelly;
something as sweet and potent for the her
to reproduce. I killed all the ants out of want,
so maybe I can feel like the queen
for a little while. As I impose my reign, I watch
them in their droning little march,
to know where they lived,
and watched closely, savoring
the micro image before pouring
a jar full of gas: setting them aflame
along with dead leaves. Inside
the house, my grandmother complains
why the jar used for iced tea smells
like potential fire – I tell I did
something about the mosquitoes,
an excuse blatantly in cohorts with evenings
to remember all the nightmares to remember
how they will always come –to remember
that I will must smoke the notion out
once in a while.
Dominique Santos
The Stradivari once noted: in thin frail hands —
perfection is an instrument that cascades
belief. In thin frail hands, that dug on steep earth cutting
wood each perfect tone, with a knock and a ring
to build an instrument so useless and so imperfect
that one day the deserving will pulse song
into its longing body. The Stradivari
once noted an ideal perfection in musicality. To turn years
and years of desire to practice and play wordless
emotion on an instrument desired —
with the luthier long gone with his secrets kept,
growing elsewhere in the mountains.
Dominique Santos
Once the city took the shape of water
and everything else had no choice
but to succumb. Every building built
that should have stood the test of time
lay suspended in between oceans and
oceans of sleep while humans scurried around,
for higher ground to settle in. Once,
the water in the city took the form of cloud,
and the remaining world, a city once damp,
slowly bloomed into foliage. No one remembered
how the flood had started, no one knew
where their dead had been carried away – in the city,
that once took the shape of water
everything else was left untouched:
plants everywhere, where buildings once stood
the test of time, as did the humans – now
rebuilding themselves to resettle
once more to the thought of a city.
Dominique Santos
