Telegraph to a Constellation

Ren Koppel Torres

.. .– — -. – -… . …. . .-. . ..-. — .-. . …- . .-.

-… ..- – … — — . – .. — . … -.– — ..-

-.-. — -. …- .. -. -.-. . — . .. .– .. .-.. .-..

 

I was boiling with color and ancient the day I knew life—

Supernovas don’t last long.

Your flesh is a poultice of ribbon and rose,

And your kisses are twilight and bare feet on grass.

I’m the first of my kind to taste peace,

So perhaps I’ll burn down to a candlewick

Before death floods my path, as is fate;

So much ash, so much nerve, and what gay fools we are,

Because as long as time is measured

In glances shared, it will never be enough.

Oh, you’re here with your hand on my sweltering cheek

So I ask nothing more of the universe now.

What a bliss to be feckless! To the born-new once-more:

Swear just this and I’ll never cry amber again.

Eclipse me when I reach my end, and shield the other worlds—

Erase my face from history because remembrance is a crossfire.

Then go glow and be loved and eternal again, because

You were made for the seers to write legends about.

Ren Koppel Torres is a 17-year-old Jewish-Mexican-American artist living in Austin, Texas. Ren is the founder and editor of the Latino arts magazine Alebrijes Review and was named an Austin Youth Poet Laureate finalist. Website: KoppelTorres.carrd.co. Twitter: @KoppelTorres.