Poem of the Week: Naomi Ayala

   
  No. 13, for Remembering

Two blocks away

where yellow cabs

zip by without stopping

and the prostitute with the skinny legs

asks for a cigarette

from under her giant,

black umbrella,

in the corner's rain

where some children

are dangerous,

can tell our future

and bet on broken love

between the dreams,

I don't know where my hands begin

and my heart ends.

Oak trees line the sidewalk,

small birds carry spring twigs

above fast-food waste,

and the bold races of rats,

like ghosts of a lost memory,

point to the day of the week.

I don't know where the face of change

is not my own face.

A cold wind picks up.

A man abandons himself

to a tambourine and harmonica--

not praising, not denouncing,

only leaving this place with this sound.

I don't know where we will

end up and begin

but I want to note

that we have been here,

that we too were invisible

and we too were seen.

-Naomi Ayala

From Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations  

(Bilingual Review Press, 2013)

Used by permission.   

A native of Puerto Rico, Naomi Ayala is the author of three books of poetry, Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press), This Side of Early (Curbstone Books: Northwestern University Press), and Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations (Bilingual Review Press). She is the translator of a book of poems by the Argentinean poet Luis Alberto Ambroggio, The Wind's Archeology (Vaso Roto Ediciones: Mexico), winner of the 2013 International Latino Book Award for Best Nonfiction Book Translation. Among her other recognitions are a Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental Justice Award and Special Recognition for Community Service from the U.S. Congress. Naomi received her MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College.