ZERO FLIRTS WITH NADA

JOSÉ ANGEL ARAGUZ

I am eyes, the shape of the sun,
what the moon yogas into,

every planet, and every ring
around each planet, where the sound

rises from guitar, from trumpet,
where the scent of flowers dwells,

empty belt-loops and gun barrels
shape me sexy and dangerous,

I am what ash used to be: bright
and crumbling down to you, my nothing.

"'Zero flirts with Nada' is part of a sequence entitled 'The Nada Poems' that make up the final section of a manuscript in progress. Elsewhere in the same manuscript are poems detailing with the ups and downs of the relationship between a mother and father. The characters of 'The Nada Poems' are Nada and Todo, whose names double as the Spanish words for Nothing and Everything, respectively. In these poems, the male/female dynamic played out in the relationship of earlier poems is set against the conceit of two characters who are gendered via language. This poems stands out as Nada meeting a kind of sympathetic character. As a Latino poet, I find a great freedom in not only code-switching but also pushing the meaning of words in one language into another."

José Angel Araguz is a CantoMundo fellow and winner of Rhino Poetry’s 2015 Editor’s Prize. He has had poems recently in Poet Lore, Borderlands, and The Laurel Review. He is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Cincinnati. He runs the poetry blog The Friday Influence.