Sometimes, the poems build a home for themselves. They settle quietly in the kitchen of our bellies or take a seat in the doorway of our throats, dangling their legs like children in the sun.

But other times, these poems aren’t such polite guests. They spread through the blood like a slow, rhythmic fever, a beautiful disease that refuses to be cured by any medicine found in a pharmacy. They sit there, heavy and expectant, waiting for a passerby to stop, to hold their trembling hands, and to examine the strange pulse of a living thing.

Because every poem is a small, hurried life, looking for a bit of warmth before death, that old, punctual clock-watcher, comes knocking at the door without an invitation. We must look at them closely now, for a poem is just a soul that forgot how to be silent.

©️ Beatriz Esmer