On Reading Miguel Hernandez at 31, The Age of His Death

Don't tell me
The heart is a flower,
Opening and closing
Like a mouth
Swallowing daybreak.
Or even that it's
A candle,
Jerking its pulse
Toward God.

If life is this, I wonder what death would be.

Tell me instead
About the time
I searched
For his grave
Along the edges
Of Madrid,
Or when I found his corpse
Buried under a folded corner
Of Lorca's Sonetos,
Blossoming like a lover
Under spring stars.

Is this my grave or the womb of my mother?

Tell me again
About the letter
From his wife,
Received in prison:
No food for their son
But bread and onions.
And describe the tuberculosis.
The heaves
Of blood and stone,
Their ragged acquittals
Peeling away
His lungs' skin
Like a knife
On his son's dinner.

I go on in the dark, lit from within.

And perhaps
You could remind me
Of the moment
I found him nailed
To my palms,
A forgotten criminal
Or god,
Unable to fall
Into the bottomless
Body of the next world.

Maybe I'm still waiting to be born.

Tell me
That the heart
Is more than
Burning bread,
More than
Crimson stone
At the edge of
The grave
Of the body.
Tell me
The heart
Is God's pulse
Pressing word
After word,
Into a poem
That awaits me
In your mouth.

Tell me that if I swallow it,
I'll go on
Lit from within.

Who is actually speaking in this poem?