La Muerte
I want Death to be my friend
to carry on long
conversations: deep, dirty, philosophical,
that lead me down dark paths.
His voice is not bombastic or shrill
and still the quiet quickens me.
I want the stillness of deep thoughts,
of shadows. Just for a midnight
tequila, without the chasers of sweet saviour
lemon. I want the meat and the salt, the bitter
range of deathless ticking
feathered touch of moments passing
weathered skin touching mine. I want the bubonic
plague of surrendered melodies,
the Xochiyaoyotl-ulterior motives
splayed wide as legs begging for heat.
I want the sex of death. Displayed,
as fruit, as offering. I want to suck
the bitter strength, the strong offal.
I’m tired of hiding.
I want to fuck
Death, the living cup.
I want to offer myself up,
heart-open, heart-less;
the undeterred wanton me
will take who she will:
the tall lonely boy,
the tall lonely bones,
Nothing will stop the sweet
tilted decay of my own skin, soft,
tedious scraping away.
So I will open myself up
to Death, the everlasting cup.
Death, my sweet
skilled, fetid, fetished
lonely fuck.
Susanna Velarde Covarrubias (theshow.kjzz.org/content/1613263/monsoon-stories-2020-upon-leaving-poem-about-arizona-monsoon) is a poet, playwright, translator, and performer. Daughter of Mexican immigrants, she’s drawn to the borderlands found between genres/labels/breaths. A VONA alum, she was selected for the 2017 Forn’s Playwriting Workshop, the 2018 Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive, and received a scholarship for Sojourn Theatre’s 2019 Devising Institute. She recently received an Arizona Commission on the Arts grant to develop her play Estrella. Covarrubias studied graduate playwriting at Notre Dame, and earned her M.F.A. in poetry at Rutgers University-Newark. Her poetry’s been featured in Phoenix, NYC, New Jersey, Hermosillo; and on PBS’ Art in the 48, and NPR’s The Show. She’s a core ensemble member with Teatro Bravo in Phoenix.