Buscando un árbol que me de sombra

By SAMUEL MIRANDA


In conversation with A Hill in the South Bronx, by Perla de Leon

Estoy buscando un árbol que me de sombra
Porque el que tengo me lo van a cortar
                                  Coro de bomba

This building stands,
the last tree to be cut down
in a garden of brick and steel
made desert of rubble and dust.

It still shelters families
whose poverty
bites into them like the rats
that chew holes into their cereal boxes
and gnaw at their toes.

It spits out children to play
on mattresses evicted by flame and smoke,
then swallows them back in
after streetlights remind mothers
to call for their return.

It provides shade
for the mangy dogs who scavenge
through the leftovers of the leftovers
and then wait below the window
of the woman who leans out
and, like a merenguero playing guiro,
scrapes her plates clean,
letting each drop of food fall within reach.

 

 

Samuel Miranda is a poet, teacher, and visual artist. He is originally from the Bronx, but has made his home in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Departure, a chapbook published by Central Square Press. His poetry has been published in print and online journals and anthologies and has been translated into Spanish.

[Purchase Issue 16 here]

Buscando un árbol que me de sombra

Related Posts

Glass: Five Sonnets

MONIKA CASSEL
In ’87 I see guardsmen walk their AK-47s / on the platforms. The trains slow down but never stop. I think, / my mother was born in such a different Germany, but this is true for everyone / —so why can’t I stop looking?

cover of "Civilians"

On Civilians: Victoria Kelly Interviews Jehanne Dubrow

JEHANNE DUBROW
Now we live in North Texas, hours away from the nearest shore. And yet, the massive amounts of open space—all the prairie, marsh, and plains that we have here—started to feel like another kind of vast water, another great expanse of distance and isolation.

Lizard perched on a piece of wood.

Poems in Tutunakú and Spanish by Cruz Alejandra Lucas Juárez

CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ
Before learning to walk / and before I’d fallen upon the wet earth / already my heart hummed in three tones. / Even when my steps were still clumsy, / I already held three consciousnesses. // Long before my baptism, / already my three nahuals were running