I close my eyes
and can hear the ground rumbling -
thunder or earthquake, a Mack truck
or just the aire acondicionado
blowing lukewarm, I don't know.
The air smelled of brown sugar
on Thursday - azúcar marrón.
Marrón, el mar, the sea -
my older sister by the sea
in México, brown as the sun
will make her, browner than
any non-Latino should be,
as the needle plunges into her back
copying her art, eyes stylized
like a mask of feathers, eyes closed.
A thousand miles away, just as brown,
the sea of her name in her eyes,
Marisa, the little one, cannot sleep.
Eyes open, open and waiting -
full of salt and hope of salvation
long-delayed. She doesn't sit in churches,
but goes also to the sea, ever
preferring salt to sugar, wounds still
open. Still she does not sleep.
I, too, visit the sea,
but I don't live there.
I am white like the salt
and the sand, tending maybe towards
shades of gold, oro. With open eyes
I look up. I see - clouds, blue,
the golden sun, el sol de oro,
my soul, the wind, el aire libre -
libertad, freedom. I close my eyes
and dream of flight.

04/03/2005

Author's Note: So. What's up with this one, right? Well, here's the deal. This is another imitation poem for my poetry class, this one of a guy named Rane Arroyo. Now, I have nothing against Mr. Arroyo personally, but a great deal of his poetry I don't understand. The most I could come up with for his 'style' was a kind of stream-of-consciousness feel with some spanish vocab thrown in. The whole eyes thing is kind of a tie-together, even though Arroyo didn't really do that. Oh well. Oh, and Vuelo = Flight.

Posted on 04/03/2005
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