“IMG 4736 (No Views)” / “IMG 6077 (No Views)” by Mike Urquidez

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facing us there is just about nothing, and so the northside —

transmission    severed.    tilt    upward.   the   most  natural
movement.  to  glimpse  first  the  moss. the needles. the dead
branches snapped and dropped by a recent fleeing storm. the
mega  trunks.  every  other  slit  with  precision. preside as if
over stink beetles in situ.  let  the  sun like a wide paintbrush
run forehead to throat. pupils shrivel along the  way. nobody
tilts their head  down on  purpose  without some  impending
sense    of   calamity.   however    small.    remember   every
inevitable  collision on grooved freeway cement. a headlight.
a hood adornment.  a  sliver  of  someone’s  eye  in great dry
detail in the mirror.  the chin tucks itself.  a turtle instinct. we
must have been taught at some point to walk from the ocean
while looking up.   trying to avoid the terns waiting to scoop
us.  the incomplete creatures. they kept coming anyway. it is
blind  relief  that  this northern trail still leads us somewhere.
a miracle we can move along.

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only by gorging
do mealworms
turn to beetles 
— satin chitin exo —
after reaching 
a point in which 
simply being larvae
is not enough 

shelter comes at the point 
of an evolutionary gun
but how does carpet padding
yellow blue green swirl
gain focus with all 
other sustenance thwarted?

do we move like endless shoelaces?
underlapping, overlapping
blast our bodies with
all ingestible nitrogen
from beneath a hallway
where walls once contained 
vibrations resonating
deep within the thorax

a rattlesnake shaker
is held together
by one piece 
growing smaller 
than the next 
growing smaller
than the next 
to a point

the song of effective outcomes

Mike Urquidez

Mike Urquidez is a poet, writer, and educator living in northeast Los Angeles. He is a graduate of the creative writing program at San Francisco State University. His work has appeared most recently in Stick Figure Poetry. He is currently at work on a full-length collection of poetry, as well as a mystery novel set in the San Fernando Valley.

Headshot: Mike Urquidez

Photo Credit: Staff