A Short Film Starring Me at a Bathhouse
I have a line of men waiting to see me. Inside,
their hands extend when I walk down halls.
I can see their palms glisten against half-lit rooms.
The soft light from the hall embraces the snail like stained floors
guiding me to the next room
& the next
& the next,
where a man will say, I’ve been waiting for an ass like yours.
When I’m here, I am not me, I am an actor.
I don’t have to audition here.
I am on the verge of winning an Oscar when I play roles
I never imagined I would get.
I never know when the camera is recording.
I look around aimlessly throwing bedroom eyes in every direction.
I’m like a foggy mirror, every part of me shimmers with condensation.
Each body has the same scent—of mold.
The meaty odor of wet socks bricks me up.
Groans, moans, & heavy sighs mixed with sweat all become singular.
We are all here for the same reason, for the same taste, for the same bone to pick.
I stargaze, searching for bodies to satisfy an itch in my mouth.
In this darkness love does not exists.
I smile knowing no one will see my hunger against these dim rooms.
I used to be afraid of the dark & in here I am darkness.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see light again
beyond these walls there is tomorrow’s light
waiting for me outside. As I leave, I whisper to the corners of this place,
I will become nightfall again tomorrow.
A Thousand Springs
Tonight, the sun will set at eight &
every day after pink skies will begin to turn grey.
I take off my cross necklace because I’m done
believing light will save me.
Soon all the green wilts without hesitation
believing in a future where it doesn’t exist yet,
where every inch of this field will be covered in grass again.
& just like this field, when its life is over, I wonder
how I will begin again. If only our bodies could last forever,
how would they come back every year?
Right before bed, this past year replays in my mind.
I can hear myself counting Tia’s breaths.
How her diaphragm didn’t rise again.
I’ve been eating the blue out of the sky
waiting for fall to announce itself. Yesterday, I met a man
from a small town. He said,
Every day feels like a year where I live.
I drove five hours to see him &
we kissed for a year. He says,
My mother died when I was fifteen.
The silence of the last summer night fills the gaps of our bodies.
The next day I drive back home
where my front grass has begun to smear already.
Soon even the trees will lose their foliage.
Soon the night sky will rise earlier again & again.
Like this fading green beneath my feet, I want to believe
my life too can become a thousand springs.
Saúl Hernández is a queer writer who was raised by former undocumented parents. Saúl is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. He’s the winner of both the 2022 Pleiades Prufer Poetry Prize judged by Joy Priest & the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize judged by Victoria Chang. His debut poetry collection, How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters, is out now. His poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize & Best of The Net. His work is featured in American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, The Slowdown, Literary Hub, Columbia Journal, Pleiades, Split This Rock, & elsewhere.