MAXIMUS

Terra

Encircled by dumb perpendiculars –
time is measured in corrosion 
both physical and spiritual. 
Is all changeless as truth? Is truth changeless?

There will be nodding in our cloisters, 
where rumbles have their appointed hour 
and tedium amounts to vision.

A delay in answer attains 
around bodies sensitive to weight.

Terrae fetus

Delicate the texture of certainty, 
nurtured as it is by recrement, 
never quite the safeguard standing 
between recusant and believer.

Notice the dirt that clings, 
neither husk nor casket. 
Toil, if anything.

Once I had a thought to scrub away. 
Once in thoroughness I effaced.

Metalla

I bless the unsettled core that besets 
the direction of my turns; 
otherwise, I would soon arrive 
where they expect me, eager and reborn.

A rebirth through foreign handling, 
ready for exchange at whim: 
value, less myself.

Shudder when the anvil speaks, 
lest the rousing din deafen.

ISRAEL A. BONILLA lives in Guadalajara, Jalisco. He has published in Able Muse, Firmament, Exacting Clam, New World Writing, BULL, King Ludd’s Rag, Berfrois, and elsewhere. His debut micro-chapbook, Landscapes, is part of Ghost City Press’s 2021 Summer Series.