I KNOW YOU LOVE MANHATTAN BUT YOU SHOULD LOOK UP MORE OFTEN

                    by Ariel Francisco 

That same sky that once delivered a bright
yellow bird at your feet like the morning
paper, a bundle of bloodied feathers
that would have smashed against your head
if you’d been walking just a step faster.
So what if the sun hasn’t come out to speak
to you in days? Even under winter’s
tightest fist some light still slips through
to you, and isn’t that a miracle?

photo by Gesi Schilling

Ariel Francisco is a first generation-American poet of Dominican and Guatemalan descent. He is currently the editor-in-chief of Gulf Stream Literary Magazine. His poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Tupelo Quarterly, Washington Square, and elsewhere, and his chapbook Before Snowfall, After Rain is available from Glass Poetry Press. He lives in Miami, FL.