1985

Long and black, the streaks
of gray, aflutter in the light
wind as she prepares to tell

her story at the Federal Building:
reaching into a tattered sack
she pulls out a doll

missing an eye, balding—
singed face smudged with soot
from the smoke her home took in

as her village was being shelled.
Next she retrieves what’s left
of a book—a few pages

the borders brown, coming
apart in her hands: hesitant,
she raises one, starts to read aloud:

por la mañana sube el sol y calienta el día
la tierra nos da dónde vivir y qué comer
la vaca nos da leche para beber y hacer mantequilla

It’s her daughter’s lesson
the poem she read to her
the day they struck—

(in the morning the sun rises and warms the day
the earth provides a place to live and what to eat
the cow gives us milk to drink and churn butter with...)

...mid-way through, her voice begins
to shake—her words
like refugees exposed to the night shiver,

freeze: silence
swallows us all...
...her words, drifting

casualities,
gather and huddle
in my throat.


                                        San Francisco

From After Rubén (Red Hen Press, 2020). Reprinted with the permission of the author.