The Lingering Wound • poems by Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena

The House on Burgos Street at Night

Where I recite the names
of the dead
in my family
before praying the rosary
in sotto voce.

The dead are thorns
stuck in my throat.

On the window
clouds roll by in the wide-blue infinity
moving like funerals
over the flooded city.

Just as the moon gleams
on the back of the piano,
the rat trap snaps.