for Hopkins and Bishop
If Death is nearby then let them creep slow
amidst the shadows. I choose to love you
like the boy thrown from the boat into cold
waters who must now learn to swim. Fear not.
How strange is it to have only seen Death
on the faces of the living? The poets
I love can sit, can say, can go, can do
anything they want to because they’re light.
From the darkest corners, I too am light.
I wonder why about many cosas
I wonder how about many people
Today was a cold spring day but nothing
Is so beautiful as spring except Death.
Praise Him.
Julián David Bañuelos is a Chicano poet and translator from Lubbock, TX. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Provost Fellow, a Stanley Award Fellow, and a 2022 Fulbright semi-finalist. His work can be read in Wine Cellar Press, Latino Book Review, The Bayou Review, The Acentos Review, and Annulet: A Journal of Poetics. He currently lives and teaches in Iowa City.
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