In Italy I was too
stubborn and young
with my pronunciation.
I remember the skies.
They were pink
and yellow, promises I
whispered back to you.
Even now
holy nights renew my faith
in Morse code.

What does Prague
matter or the vapid sunset
after an Arizona
monsoon? She
has said my name
in so many variations,
one for each day
of a leap-year February,
a picture that re-
develops under red lights.

I am lonely in a neon Japan
looking for a 4 am temple
or migrant worker
to harvest a ripe crop.
A heart remembers to
beat, even after it’s pulled
from its cage, still pulsing
caught between chopsticks,
then swallowed again.

Somehow Austin ’s thick
bricks line this Akron back
alley, but poorly. Smudged
and dirty as soot on Catholic
stained-glass, the cracks
that split concrete are bridges
I’ve missed or refused
to step on. You
are without shoes, only
winged feet, the suction of air
as you leave.

Finally, here in Toledo
I write my daughters’ first
lives, a soft bruise
of ink like the river’s
curve. We are together until the city
is sprained
as if limping in a three-legged race.

Teneice Delgado
Currently living in Ohio