Lightning Round

After Tongo Eisen- Martin

I must tell you their names without choking     insert my name and make it
a rising whisper     and make it matter    and make you taste it     I’ll have you know
the winds of a hurricane can power         my mouth     for months on end

I must tell you I was raised amid the busy stride         of an army of women    by a
spectrum of expectations    by the distance     between     my body
and a police baton stick    I was raised as bright silence    but also as a splinter under your nail

Understand that my body can comfort you     or be gun & noose     that our arms
can daisy-chain and become     a new element     that every new morning
the street makes me believe            it’s a clean slate    but still makes me trip
over bodies and headlines

Make no mistake    a mother’s single tear could drown us all
Make no mistake    a mocked syllable in a foreign name should condemn us
Make no mistake    a mouth dripping hunger is a siren that should hush howling dogs

I would like for us to become pulse     to choose unsilence     to grow into wave and tide
I would like for us to get to know our neighbor    and say their name
and savor it     and retain it     before     it dissolves     in a headline         before
it becomes     a tealight memorial     at the park

Zoé Robles was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She studied Comparative Literature and Italian Studies. Her poems have appeared in Adobe Walls, Malpais, Voces Nuevas, Third Wednesday and elsewhere. She currently teaches English to immigrants and works as a translator. She lives in Los Alamos, NM.