Daybreak

celebrates with hats
and open windows.

Terror flies off the cycle.

Mountaintops throw birds
in each other’s faces.
Hope dawns in airports,

under the vault,
shedding light of so
many centuries.

Love and patience,
central columns.
We rub our hands

and laugh. We wash
our eyes and play.









Sergio A. Ortiz won second place in the 2016 Ramón Ataz Annual Poetry Competition sponsored by Alaire publishing house. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in FRIGG, Tipton Poetry Journal, Drunk Monkeys, and Bitterzeot Magazine. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard, in Puerto Rico.