by Brent Ameneyro
I walk past the half-finished cinderblock building
the not yet blooming Jacarandas
and the police lights
turning the laundromat blue
in search of a flower
or a church
that could make me feel
like the child licking tamarindo
talking to himself
I watch two volcanoes at sunset
on the left a woman sleeps
or dies of grief
she glows every night in the horizon
a warrior in love with the woman
lies next to her
exhales smoke into the sky
I shrink down
from a two-hundred-pound chingon
to an eight-year-old boy
scared of the flashing
blue and red lights
Brent Ameneyro’s poetry has been published in The Fourth River, Hispanic Culture Review, and elsewhere. He was the recipient of the 2019 Sarah B. Marsh Rebelo Excellence in Poetry award, a 2020 San Miguel Poetry Week Fellowship, and the 2021 SRS Research Award for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice.
WART (Christian McCulloch) is a prolific short-story writer with a background in Fine Art. He’s been a teacher in the British West Indies, Singapore, and Japan. He now lives and creates in London. His artwork has appeared in Assure Press, Eris & Eros, Sand Hills, William & Mary Review, and elsewhere.
Gulf Stream Magazine 