The Portable Man
In her pockets spider webs of lint she fingers from time to time
Her lip-gloss regenerates itself in the dark of its little phallic case
She thinks of a man who is very small within the range of her thoughts
But looms large in fantasy sports but not the kind you think
The kind with the sleekness of seals propelling themselves
Through a sticky but fluid substance designed to efficiently deliver the payoff
She thinks of her words cascading all over his body
Making nests for the elusive Higgs Boson
Proposing plans for vetiver vacations
And those that he emits in a fit wanting her to schedule him in
Wanting to be the stranger a man stuck in an elevator
Moving in a gender-specific way saying in another life they were
Shocked by the use of handwriting or the courtesy of silence
He walks gingerly successfully over her imported shattered glass
She thinks of him as being from nowhere where any allegiance
Made is a temporary madness easy to break
On The Edge Of The Bed
It was the smell of smoke on her hands
The whiskey on her breath
Many wanted in on this without paying their dues
She asked me to take the bobby pins out of her hair
I did so as slowly as a man on death row
There are nerve endings connected to the sun she said
As cold as they are hot I’m like an amputee she continued
Feeling horribly what’s no longer there
I poured her another my hands shaking
I’m from a race of children I told her
Who cannibalized their parents with love
She ignored this as we made shadow creatures on the wall
It could’ve been wartime or the hangover of a wasted night
Often she was the only woman in a scene
Made entirely of men just walking to and from somewhere
This is how I saw her fearless and impeccably dressed
The mandrake in narcotic drag
The remainder of our time together we spliced loops
One more incongruous than the other
Impossible to dance to
Recollection Of The Fall
He hid from the sun but it found him by reflection
Arranged by chance in a room wrecked by crusades
Thumbing through sharp thoughts with a thimble
Opening the lost words with a curmudgeon’s scowl
Seeing the old nuns play like birds in the shadow
Of the monastery coaxing gardens from their chaste hands
He could use these patterns without any precise plan
Spiral in his thoughts on the lines of his left palm
If only he could add his own codicil to the will of the past
But his attention waned and some crazed warmth
Touched his arm and he did not pull it back
Armando Jaramillo Garcia was born in Colombia, South America and raised in New York City. He attended Hunter College and currently works as a photo industry professional at a science and medical agency. He has published recently or is forthcoming in The Boston Review, Prelude, Horse Less Review, ThoseThatThis, TYPO, The Opiate and others.