February’s breath—frayed at the edges,
with orange streaks lost in prairie gold.
The dogface breathes in the breeze
of fevered suns of summer meadows.
Its yellow wings crackle like hot paper,
stitched into this earth by sun-burnt hands,
and a black dot tattooed in its back—
O, the nectar-thief!
O, flame-winged thing!
Tracing the belly of America, like a knot,
with golden threads of riverbeds.
Dogface, dogface, dogface—
a name too simple for this burning thing,
with its fluttering, flying, flaming face; dog-face,
chihuahua-face, shepherd-face, poodle-face—
little matters what we call this creature,
as long as it’s wild and unchained.
Once, you mistook its flight for freedom,
but no—this one has very thin flesh,
bound to its ticking tiny bones;
in August, it quivers like a compass needle,
chasing the blue-bruised sky full of riddles,
not a pilgrim seeking the sacred shores
of the West Coast, but a vagabond,
lost, forevermore.
Where do you flee to, weightless dogface?
You cannot outrun the knot
that smolders your body to the Southern sun,
To the city, where steel rivers clot the veins of men,
where asphalt scorches the tongue.
In the city, they talk of butterflies as paper dolls,
stains on window-panes, the loss of beauty—
they know nothing of wings, only dollar bills.
But have they seen a real dogface, ever?
No, when a butterfly takes a shortcut
through the city, it crumples and dies.
You rise—
pilgrim of dead rivers, drunk on pollen,
coasting the brittle jaws of fences
where the city’s teeth chew the throat of nature.
You stand—
not like city steel,
not like cabled bridges,
not like clouds of smog,
but like the echo of thunder—
the distant roar of Paterson’s falls,
rolling across the deserts and plains,
rippling up to the river of Shutamul Bear.
Yet, this dogface knows him not;
not like the butterflies that do not fear,
being settled on the fall’s stone ear.
It never liked those waterfalls,
always running, never stopping,
the water flows,
the water falls,
and falls,
and falls,
and falls.
And the dogface falls too—onto its wings,
where you can see the nation’s map,
unfolding wide, cracked and damp,
like a paper-frail atlas
returning to the earth—
to the place where life breaks,
and a new one awakes.
—
Erwin Arroyo Pérez holds a Master’s degree in English Literature and Linguistics from Université Paris Nanterre and King’s College London, specializing in Victorian literature. His published thesis explores labor and leisure in novels by Dickens, Gaskell, and Gissing. He has studied under poet Sarah Howe and novelist Benjamin Wood, shaping his approach to creative writing. As Founder and Editor-in-Chief at The Poetry Lighthouse, Erwin’s poetry often examines themes of diaspora, language, and culture. He also teaches literature and works as a translator.
