SELF-PORTRAIT AS YURICO WITH GLUE BOTTLE AND CIGARETTE

                    by Bailey Cohen 

​Cuando era un niño, I spoke
with a softer voice. We all flew

so ignorantly of the ground
and the muscle tendons in our backs.

Like Icarus, I am winged
only sometimes. No puedo volar

so instead I fall as deliberately as I can.
Like a coward, I wish to die

in my sleep. To float & then
keep floating. To wisp away,

leaving nothing but tastes
of salt and vanilla. My people have

always cared too little
of the velocity of burning.

Look! Today is so blue and     sky-filled!
            I can almost        see         your grandmother.
Mira!                              Hijo, tenemos              the entire         world
            if we                   just keep walking        a little bit more.
                       I know you                             want to fly,
                                                                                            but can’t you feel
the grass                       between your toes?
                                                                                                       My son--
             té recuerdas the first prayer              I             ever
                                                                                                         taught
                                                                                                                   you?
How the words
                             would drift
                                                        through your feathers

                                                                                                                   like wind?

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photo by Jessie Coleman

Bailey Cohen is a first generation Ecuadorian-American poet studying English Literature, Politics, and Creative Writing as an undergraduate student at New York University. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Projector Magazine, The Minetta Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and more. He can be found on Twitter, where he actively shares poems, @BaileyC213. He loves everyone Latinx.