familial we’re weather
carried on angled mirrors
in brush of critique, women teach how
close the harsh brush is. since nation’s
lonely speech near erasure tonight
is recollection building homeliness up,
highway sounds bed in dreams.
and neglect a similar reflection
refraction.
along the fields of cotton
your sense of ghost is in the mesquite, live
oak, and huisache. your entrance to all this
is membrane to every person that’s purpose is
now horizon. along clouds, where names are
to recognize migration—words—at your age
are then singular birds astray on telephone wires.
and do they even signal when to leave the flock,
say—when you come across them, whenever
you’re hush, barked up, again listening.
Matthew Flores is from South Texas and has received fellowships from the Tin House Writer’s Workshop and The Idea Fund-Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts. They are co-director of the artist residency at the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas. Currently, they are an MFA candidate at Arizona State University.
