A Year for Romance
My heart reads blank,
Veins dry of ink.
My story dreamed,
Is still a mystery.
I'm ever worried about telling
someone else's story
wrong.
"Can a woman ever write
the true thoughts of a man?
Will I be able to show Sab's
soul on paper.”
I find I am in conversation with conflicts.
I find I am in conversation with poets.
Both are ways to fall in love.
“Romantic,” I say.
“Yes, Romance,” Gertrudis might nod her head
As she did her pen.
“No, no aliento ambción noble,
Como engañada imaginas,
De que en páginas de gloría
Mi humilde nombre se escriba. . .”
It's sunny,
though the sun does no good.
I would put on my new sunglasses
Except, the heat from my skin would fog
their darkness.
One question thumps.
“Can a free person
really understand one whose dreams
must fly up and soar
high about the depths of slavery?"
Anti-lock brakes against the ice.
Ten minutes into the drive
To the part time job
I took to have a full time life,
in which I get no traction.
Air warms slowly.
In an empty Diet Coke bottle,
It pops. Snaps. Lightning.
“Canto sin saber yo propia
Lo que el canto significa,
Y si al mundo que lo escucha,
Asombro o lástima inspira. . .”
Broken sunglasses still sit on the kitchen counter,
Frames and lenses next to the sink
Frames and lenses on top of the pieces of a metal colander.
They used to bump up and down
Over my head to Reggaeton.
They cracked on a day I thought my options
Had finally opened up.
They broke after, I had failed.
They broke before
I knew I had failed.
"Is my imagination enough,
or do I need to add the ways
in which I myself
have felt enslaved?"
I can’t tell if I am living
My story or my situation.
The air around me barely shows any difference.
Just a pop from the plastic.
I run across books in the library stacks
Without looking.
The pages are there
When I’m not.
They read
When I can’t see. Dreamer.
“Canto porque al cielo plugo
Darme el estro que me anima;
Como dio brillo a los astros,
Como dio al orbe armonías. . .
Canto poque hay en los seres
Sus condiciones precisas:
Corre el agua, vuela el ave,
Silba el viento, y el sol brilla. . .”
"No one speaks this way."
I was told.
But I do.
I speak this way.
And Margarita Engle speaks this way.
"I must be honest, writing myself
into the story, revealing
all my secrets."
And she reminded me
“Premiando nobles esfuerzos,
Sienes más heroicas ciña;
Que al cantar solo cumplo
La condición de mi vida. . ."
Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda spoke this way.
In text ripped apart,
I sew my heart back together.
It is a year,
For romance.
References:
“Romance: Contestando a otro de una señorita” by Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda
“The Lightning Dreamer” by Margarita Engle
