Where I was before,

resurfaces once in while 

during the light                                   of an early blur. 

The morning comes to me with a sun brunch— 

crisp light. You wouldn’t believe                   how I breathe 

now, before I grew this leaf,               big enough to wear 

as a mask. Before my vows toward tall windows,

I was buried amongst a moving sale, a brief plea on craigslist,

a distant pin dropped in the middle of Brooklyn

apartment — apparently a warehouse 

uncovered in a rush.                            Intake all the pacing 

everything is in motion behind terracotta. 

a hall of labeled boxes, of wine glasses,

this side up, copper frames, free.

I’m not offended that you doubted me. 

That you just wanted the vase I mourned 

in. That I was left as a 2-for-1 throw-in, as life bartered. Given away 

on a deathbed, my pruning existence. My mother of endless water 

has forgotten. Moved already from the mind’s loft and allowed me 

to gather upon myself. Yellow leaves depart. My days were once served as another’s

decoration. And this had to be what would bring me back 

to the earth. A rotting philodendron buried in its own 

autumn. A melted emerald covered in its own filth. A surviving child lushing 

toward a distant brightness— all these secretive endings on our way 

to free. But home has become where I am welcomed. And when the piles of myself resurface 

I breathe in with my whole body / I know 

nothing is rotten. 

---

Karl Michael Iglesias is a Puerto Rican actor, director and writer from Milwaukee, WI, who now resides in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry can be read in the Florida Review, RHINO, the Brooklyn Review, the Madison Review, the Hong Kong Review and the Academy of American Poets, to name a few. Karl is the author of the poetry chapbooks CATCH A GLOW and The Bounce—both available from Finishing Line Press. karlmichaeliglesias.com