Whispers and Secrets / Mid-February by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Whispers and Secrets

Whispers and secrets
fuel the moon’s avarice.
It is never satiated as
it inhales all it hears.

Its light is fixated on us,
a witness to all we say
and do. The only thing
it cannot do is read our

minds, which is why we
should not blurt out what
we are thinking. Sleep
talkers have no remedy.
Through open windows the
moonlight inhales each word.





Mid-February

In mid-February
the streets near the Flower Market
in Downtown Los Ángeles
are heavy with traffic.
What is normally a minute drive
from Maple to 9th Street
turns into the longest ten minutes
ou have ever driven.

You think of buying flowers
for the woman who keeps your
heart burning for a love out of reach,
but there is nowhere to park
as your anxiety heightens.
Ten minutes turns into twenty
and still there is nowhere to park.
Your lunch break is nearly over.
So you make plans on coming out
here the next day before the sun
is out and most of the world is asleep

including the woman you love.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His poetry and art has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Escape Into Life, Four Feathers Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, and Unlikely Stories. His most recent poetry book, Make the Water Laugh, was published by Rogue Wolf Press.