«Savage Anatomy» (poetry by Bodo Vespaciano, a.k.a. Francisco Bravo Cabrera)

SALVAGE ANATOMY

There is a city inside the glass
and we are the light looking for its seam.

My mother said when the house catches,
don’t run. Learn the grammar of ash.

At the bar, blue neon
keeps finding the same stain on the floor.
You sit with your hands folded, palms up,
like tools left on a counter by someone not coming back.

Who taught you to keep silver
where the damp could reach it?

Out front, the men are talking.
Each carries his father somewhere below the sternum,
not dead enough to bury.
They call the chain freedom
when the links are long enough to walk around in.

Inside, the jukebox skips on the same word
the way a tongue returns to a missing tooth.

I have learned the evening
the way you learn a coat from someone else’s shoulders:
where the elbows go, where the lining gives.

All we own is the brief heat
between striking the match
and learning what we have set fire to.

(Francisco Bravo Cabrera/a.k.a. Bodo Vespaciano, Valencia, 07 OCT 2026)

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