[YOU ARE VIEWING A FOSSIL IN THE SHAPE OF A POEM]

& there is a geyser in my ears
where water’s atoms wonder 
for the opaque redness of my oneness,

& haphazardly through the riverbend
of oxygenation at my nasal canals
there is a flood,

& where all of me clears out
from the river’s mouth
amongst this country of wealth

& my feet on the marrow ledge
facing a leeward gaze, I am
unabashed by the throats stuck in silence

& the sunbeams, O, the pale sky
is my archeologist for the once
alive, now decayed

& there, remains a site of
exposition for my well-
kept ruin

& today, I am the revealer,
my exhibition of dreams
turned to dust. I preserve.

Avery C. Castillo is a Mexican American poet from the Rio Grande Valley. She is a recent undergraduate from Texas Tech University earning a BA in English/Creative Writing and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies.