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Published: Wed Jul 1 2009
Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convirtiéndose en characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
Sanatorium Juqueri

Maria, give us camphor.
A saint should give real things

since she is not like us. A saint
should feed like manioc. Donna

Maria, let us line up
at your skin. A saint should not be

among us the only one dressed.
How should your blue remind me?

There’s only a grate of sky
at the showers where my small

sulfurous cake could be
precious heel of you, delicate

floating, I must touch and
touch, palms of lather, escape

me and let it be real palms
and guava, cicadas in my dream

where if I step into your sight,
the loan of my body will be paid.

Kelleen Zubick’s poetry has appeared in Many Mountains Moving, The Seattle Review, Puerto Del Sol, and The Antioch Review, among other journals, and is forthcoming in Dogwood. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Arizona State University and lives and works in Denver, Colorado. (updated 11/2009)

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