Maybe I should reconsider how day has an arc & arc has a day.
Maybe it happens like this. I stand upon a hill, I open like a zero
variations & vibrations across a clay bowl of water; my movements
mathematical. Or it happens like this. When I am brown
& go down on my knees, I go through a beautiful transformation.
Solar flares are my stellar arrogance. I am versed & bearded.
I multiply out of the dark, round riddled sky. How many layers
before I am a young lord, mapping out the patterns of a star.

That is one way of telling the story. Another is to open the jar
& catch the parallelogram of the stars. Now you are trapped.
No more moonwalk. Another way is to tell nothing at daybreak,
nothing at sundown. You lock down the black holes, all empty shells,
all zeros closed. Nada, you want nada, the absence of nada, a clarity
that says you’re done. You’re out of here. You’ve navigated this far.

William Archila is the author of The Art of Exile, International Latino Book Award, and The Gravedigger’s Archaeology, Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. He has been published in American Poetry Review, AGNl, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Magazine, and the anthologies The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the US. He lives in Los Angeles, on Tongva land.