Today each shadow is a giddy cosmonaut
navigating fields of light.

Wherever I stand sprinklers go off
and invite rainbows.

The transparencies of air feel
vertiginous as sky.

Every cloud is pregnant with rain that never falls.
Every tree vibrates with telepathic zest.

Ossicles spell out a symphony
that began in the Mesozoic with giant lizards.

The migratory patterns of vampire bats
have been rerouted to your house in the suburbs.

Politicians in Washington and everywhere else
wear overalls and are muzzled with honesty.

A virus somewhere has decoded the gene
for happiness.

All our liminal angels reel in the dark

 

—
José Luis Gutiérrez is a San Francisco-based poet. His work has appeared in Eratio, Scythe, Margie, Poemeleon, DMQ, Jetfuel, Caliban and is forthcoming in Metonym, Xavier Review and Kestrel, among others. His first poetry collection, A World Less Away, was published in 2016.