Bellyache, or Damn-fine meal

One day
I’ll run out of love poems
And the buildings will bend
Like praying knees

Heaven
Less than a messy dream

Maybe a kiss from God
Means something
To a buried child

To the earth
Hugging her so

The most alive person I know
Is dead & my old poem says
We laughed during our last meal

Imagine:
Our teeth like pebbles
Coffee-stained &
Anything but the stars

We spat in the face of
Death—
Wanted strangers
To applaud the diss

Memories like stories
Like words scattered like debris

Dry mouths made of the sea
Where I learned the breaststroke
Shortly after my full name

What’s more human
Than seeing ourselves
Drown?

What’s drowning
To the fish
In the belly of the beast?

Bio – Alex Z. Salinas is the author of two full-length poetry collections: WARBLES and DREAMT, or The Lingering Phantoms of Equinox. He is also the author of a book of stories: City Lights From the Upside Down. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and Language from St. Mary’s University. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.