Greetings! Every week throughout the summer, BOA's staff and interns will share one of our favorite poems from our over 300 collections of poetry. This week's poem in honor of Pride Month is from Cenzontle by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo.

Gesture and Pursuit

I want to be the bride days later
when she is no longer a bride,
combing her hair in the mirror.

But it is too late.

I've already locked myself in my room
and imagined every variation
between witness and music.

I want everything to touch me
before it is bright enough
to slip through the house undetected—

like the sound of a child in the womb
tending its own window.

In which case anything is bright enough.

Is it too much to ask?
All I want is to run out of a church,
throw a bouquet,
and hop in a car

like my mother always wanted.

Buy a copy of Cenzontle from the BOA Bookstore.

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