What Did Cipitio Say?

Poetry
Written By William Archila

What did Cipitio say? Philosophers bore me? Even Cardinals hate me?
Even if I wine & dine their curiosity about goblins, goodwill & gods
they still cater & curse me? What he has to say is a long prophecy.

There is no way to measure the pause between the greater ladder
of light & darkness, no matter how long my life has lasted. There are
as many parts in my body as complex as three caravels that sailed
the ocean blue in 1492. There are as many tones on my tongue
as commonplace as three basic colors in a self-portrait with crazy.
Blue for country. Black for knowledge. Red there are too many
small stains of it. My mother tongue is broke. My other everywhere.
Sometimes life’s not enough to weigh the stray dog I carry in my trunk.

It turns out my life has become a Christopher Columbus ringtone
early to bed, early to rise. I have put liquor & fornication aside.
My sobriety watches my own burial. I am so domesticated I can burst.

William Archila

William Archila is the winner of the 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry for his collection S is For. He is the author of The Art of Exile which was awarded the International Latino Book Award, and The Gravedigger’s Archaeology which received the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. He was also awarded the 2023 Jack Hazard fellowship. He has been published in Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, AGNl, Copper Nickle, Colorado Review, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, Southern Indiana Review and the anthologies The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. In 2010, he was named a Debut poet by Poets & Writers. He lives in Los Angeles, on Tongva land. He has work forthcoming in Indiana Review, The Georgia Review, and Poetry Northwest.

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