2020 VISION  

Steven Cordova 

 

I see the world through breath-coated lenses  

& while it’s nice to know I’m still alive—  

& breathing—it’s maddening. I can’t read  

through condensation—can’t fully assess  

the man sitting across from me on the Q.  

Is he as tall & masked as I think he is? 

Just as my fellow big-city citizens must heed 

traffic lights flashing overhead—

now green, now yellow, suddenly red—

I, too, must obey the stop sign, must be

certain when to cruise & when to hit 

the brakes. But it’s hard to sense, 

these days, whether it’s love I see

or hate, whether the object of my ever

growing affections is gay or straight.

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Steven Cordova’s collection of poetry, Long Distance, was published by Bilingual Review Press in 2010. His poems are forthcoming in New Orleans Review, and have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Callaloo, The Journal, Notre Dame Review, and the Los Angeles Review. He reviews books for Lambda Literary. From San Antonio, TX, he lives in Brooklyn.

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