Poetry: Two Poems by Isaac Salazar
Amyl Nitrate
After Imani Davis
Like an obsidian blade, subtlety. In a place of yes,
your lips rule, iron-fisting against my choked nose.
Christina Aguilera in the club & we unleash
inhibition. New moon’s hole, ball-gagged. Eyes
beaded beneath the violet light’s summer body.
Your vice grip still nameless in my throat—
tongue-drowned in saliva’s deluge, I always want
to understand your linger, that bloated sugar-sweet vined
in the orchard of my nostrils. There: Two hooded monks.
Then nothingness. Amsterdam of my day, there are
many colors. I walk on a cobblestone street &, now,
it occurs: The miserable crawl of my breath. Unimprovised,
this pirouetted dizzy. Finally, my head holds a god.
Be done. There’s nothing more to say.
Note
The line “Your vice grip still nameless in my throat” is borrowed from Cristina Correa’s poem
“My Mind Is a Long Song,” published in The Missouri Review.
The last line is taken from Imani Davis’ poem “Kink.”
Self-Portrait as Aloe Vera
In my sultriness
I burlesque,
succulent
& thick-fleshed.
On the porch, a Texas sun
pries open a clingy roof
with its pocketknife
of light & I realize
public play, its nature toward ritual.
My maw, immeasurable in wait,
like a voyeuristic gator.
No sense of beginning
in this vessel where I’ve erected
my immortal, gray-green tongue.
Long-distanced from speech—
cruel anticipation. This meeting
of street cats. Bone-white, my fangs
make a mess out of a hand,
drawing out its syrup like a mosquito.
How to reconcile me:
Hold a flower
then hold a knife. Again,
August, & my body
spills its sauce.
I piece together the leech
of me onto you, wanting
to be cupped. Like water through
a sieve, brief romance.
As survival arrives, I coax
a drooling pursuit like a dog
submitting to a treat.
Damaged finding damaged.
In the kiln of day,
there is a wound in a glaze.
A sweaty dream.
About Isaac Salazar
Isaac Salazar is an Austin-born and Houston-based poet. His work is published or forthcoming in AGNI, Dead End Zine, orangepeel, The Acentos Review, and Where Meadows, among others. He is a graduate student at Rice University.
