by Carlos Egaña
guerra
[buscando visa para naufragar] in seas of red, white, and blue
that leak from cumulus clouds, I
become a pillar of salt and sulfur.
my head is a tendonless specter – as my body goes furiously
into nights of shame, it rocks and rolls and relishes
in a stampede of memories.
[buscando visa, carne de la mar,] I try to swim away
from the fangs of a sharklike country,
contra la corriente que electrocuta nada.
[buscando visa, la razón de ser] of the scabs that pick at my wings,
of the signs that the science I learned is a waste.
no matter how much I yearn to be rescued
the wishes I granted my traumas catch up to me.
[buscando visa para no volver] to the place that I left in ruins,
to the ruins that put me in my place.
Carlos Egaña (Caracas, 1995) recently finished his MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at New York University. He has also taught courses on Gender Studies and Modern North American Fiction at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He has three books in print: a novel titled Reggaetón (Ediciones Puntocero, 2022) and two poetry collections, hacer daño (Oscar Todtmann Editores, 2020) and Los Palos Grandes (dcir ediciones, 2017). And he has written about art, politics, and pop culture for various Venezuelan and American publications, such as Prodavinci, El Estímulo, and Jacobin. Poems of his have appeared in Hot Pink Mag, the Columbia Journal, and the Nueva York Poetry Review.
Gulf Stream Magazine 