Return
Home
The Republic of Poetry
Something Escapes the Bonfire
City of Glass
General Pinochet at the Bookstore
The Poet's Coat
You Got a Song, Man
The Face on the Envelope
Advice to Young Poets
Return
Why My Bones Hate the Ice
The Caves of Camuy

Return

            245 Wortman Avenue
            East New York, Brooklyn
 
Forty years ago, I bled in this hallway.
Half-light dimmed the brick
like the angel of public housing.
That night I called and listened at every door:
in 1966, there was a war on television.
 
Blood leaked on the floor like oil from the engine of me.
Blood rushed through a crack in my scalp;
blood foamed in both hands; blood ruined my shoes.
The boy who fired the can off my head in the street
pumped what blood he could into his fleeing legs.
I banged on every door for help, spreading a plague
of bloody fingerprints all the way home to apartment 14-F.
 
Forty years later, I stand in the hallway.
The dim angel of public housing is too exhausted
to welcome me.  My hand presses
against the door at apartment 14-F
like an octopus stuck to aquarium glass;
blood drums behind my ears.
Listen to every door: there is a war on television.

 

from The Republic of Poetry

  dot dot dot

All material © Martín Espada, all rights reserved.
If you experience any problems using this site, please contact the webmaster.