Noé

By OSWALDO VARGAS

Neither of us see or hear the kittens
when we set the garbage pile at the farm on fire.

We come back to spines and white smoke—
that means a new Pope is coming—

but the mother cat is in his lap,
staring like a mother who saw my lover

spit on me
and I don’t deny it,

I even introduce him:
Noé,

and how, like his namesake Noah,
he wants to live 950 years

if it means 950 years of meeting me
behind a cinder block

that the city forgot.

Oswaldo Vargas is a former farmworker and a 2021 Undocupoets Fellowship recipient. He has been anthologized in Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color and published in Narrative Magazine and Academy of American Poets’ “Poem-A-Day” (among other publications). He lives and dreams in Sacramento, California.

[Purchase Issue 26 here.]