Poem of the Week: María Luisa Arroyo

barreras     

para Martín Espada (1993)

Mami called us away from the roach trap line

where novice factory workers, fresh from the island,

and I, fresh from Germany, poked

protruding yellow chunks of roach bait

into black traps with long-stem Q-tips

we dunked in alcohol.

Another safety meeting. My first.

El jefe de la factoría faced us

and heard nothing by the silence

of women hablando y bochincheando

in Tidy-Bowl blue uniforms. "Safety shoes should....

Factory goggles are .... Hairnets must...."

All the Spanish he knew could have fit

into one of those trampas, too little to translate

what Flora, Aida, and Teresa needed to know.

A heavy box fell and crushed a few of Flora's

dedos del pie. Alcohol splashed into Aida's ojos.

The uncovered motor yanked out one of Teresa's trenzas.

I broke rank and stood. "If safety is first, then why

aren't your updates translated into Spanish?"

How all uniforms blue shrank away from me,

from my nasal twang, from that language that sounds as if

I were chewing papas calientes o mucho chicle.

For once, though, my mother was proud of my English.

El jefe told me I could have been promoted

to the shampoo line.

-María Luisa Arroyo

 

Used by permission.

Originally published in Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press 2008)  

Multilingual award-winning poet María Luisa Arroyo enjoys facilitating poetry workshops and has performed her poems widely, including in Chicago and Puerto Rico. Academically trained at Colby, Tufts, and Harvard in German, Arroyo has published poems in many journals, including CALYX, and PALABRA. Her publications include the poetry collection, Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press 2008) and the multicultural anthology about bullying, Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions, Catharsis (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012) co-edited with Magdalena Gómez.

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