I fast during daylight hours. At once
accidental, my body pupated, and now
consuming sunlight seems an impossibility.
Empty, I glide through the world, light
as if weightless, slouched from exhaustion.
The ascetic does not beg, rather bewildered
by the breath of time itself. Somewhere

here along the migratory path, hurricane-bent
goldenrod feeds the season's final monarchs.
Can the oyamel firs summon them home
so far north during Día de los Muertos? They
ride barrier island currents like a deciduous
striptease, swept up and loosed into the storm.
Distant cousins, perhaps I am more mothlike

monochrome, mouthless as I gyre the moon and starve
myself for the brief company of nocturnal transmissions.
Hallucination: the goldenrod shakes, a million tiny bells
in the salty breeze, rusts from yellow to orange to
iron black as night, bursting into just as many pairs
of wings; a voice, wind through evergreen, exhales:
que lleven el más allá dondequiera van ellas.

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