Illustration: Somnath Bhatt.

Every bird should have the right
to die by night
over the sea
to be swallowed
by the restless mirror
and float on.

Every bird should have the right
to never touch the ground,
to remain suspended in the silence
of a blue sky reflected
in a portal to the other side.

They should have the right
to never close their wings.

Háel Lopez
Háel Lopez was born in 1994 in Guatemala City, but has lived in El Tejar, Chimaltenango. She’s studying Sociology and has participated in readings and festivals in Guatemala City, Chimaltenango, Sumpango, and Xela. Her collection Rutinas/Despedidas was published in 2018 by Sion Editorial in Guatemala. In 2015 she started keeping a blog for her writing: Tresnoventaytres.wordpress.com
http://Tresnoventaytres.wordpress.com

Ariel Francisco
Ariel Francisco is the author of A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020) and All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017). A poet and translator born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents and raised in Miami, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, The Florida Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. The Miami New Times named him one of the Five Florida Writers to Watch in 2019.