Sara Lupita Olivares
Retablos
stretched horizontally, perception flounders uncharted
each image a sum, the subject nearly out of sight
in the grass, weeds sporadically appear, grief gathered into
pale traces having moved on from the instance depicted
it is easier to see how desperation transfigures—each
stem perplexed by another version of itself
Sara Lupita Olivares is the author of Migratory Sound (The University of Arkansas Press), which was selected as winner of the 2020 CantoMundo Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Times, Bennington Review, Salt Hill Journal, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She currently lives in northern New Mexico where she is an assistant professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University.