BIO
Michael Díaz Feito is a Cuban American writer from Miami, Florida. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Axolotl, The Acentos Review, Hinchas de Poesía, Jai-Alai Magazine, Jersey Devil Press, theEEEL, and Flapperhouse. You can find Michael’s work at michaeldiazfeito.com and follow him on Twitter @diazmikediaz. He currently dwells in Inwood, Manhattan, with his girlfriend Naomi and their dog Finn.
Pwyll López
Pwyll woke in the tree stand, gland-stinking;
his sentimental rifle loved for its gifts, parts
like Abuelo’s barrel, puberty’s trigger, Xmas
sights,so when the stag climbs that hill, he can
feel for it, the stag who gurgles up its life,
or for the rifle,
who forgets itself if not firing.
Our tools think (complicating things for 21st-
century men who said, X don’t kill X; X
kill X), “I’m real.” Rifles like Jerry, Christie,
Enrique, or Daisy chat online, swap data, or
war stories, while selfcleaning, selflubricating.
Pwyll told his rifle Pippi,
“Pippi, you are real.”
She hears him.
They go off tugging ipsa triggers.
Tiros graze the stag. It twists down the hill—
which glows so cleargreener in sleep—digs
into its mulched heart-pit
the thing-heap of freshly
clipped nets, and re-links
them slow using just long
pine needles, marl,
and resin.
Wellspring
Knowing-if is an oil spill
and things the gulf: Open O
like a lamprey’s sucker—
that’s the well of our Florida finca,
just a hueco toothed by
limestone snags, where (lifting
by tails) we drop the Cuban anoles
into the far down chalky
cuz we’re too big to dive
and learn ourselves. After a scolding I
sneak to the well,
snake a skinny
arm into the dark, waiting.