"barreras"/Split This Rock Poem of the Week

Split This Rock  Poem of the Week -  María Luisa Arroyo                                                                      barreras      para Martín Espada (1993) Mami called us away from the roach trap line where novice factory workers, fresh from the island, and I, fresh from Germany, poked protruding yellow chunks of roach bait into black traps with long-stem Q-tips we dunked in alcohol. Another safety meeting. My first. El jefe de la factoría faced us and heard nothing by the silence of women hablando y bochincheando in Tidy-Bowl blue uniforms. "Safety shoes should.... Factory goggles are .... Hairnets must...." All the Spanish he knew could have fit into one of those trampas, too little to translate what Flora, Aida, and Teresa needed to know. A heavy box fell and crushed a few of Flora's dedos del pie. Alcohol splashed into Aida's ojos. The uncovered motor yanked out one of Teresa's trenzas. I broke rank and stood. "If safety is first, then why aren't your updates translated into Spanish?" How all uniforms blue shrank away from me, from my nasal twang, from that language that sounds as if I were chewing papas calientes o mucho chicle. For once, though, my mother was proud of my English. El jefe told me I could have been promoted to the shampoo line. -María Luisa Arroyo     Used by permission. Originally published in Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press 2008)   Multilingual award-winning poet María Luisa Arroyo enjoys facilitating poetry workshops and has performed her poems widely, including in Chicago and Puerto Rico. Academically trained at Colby, Tufts, and Harvard in German, Arroyo has published poems in many journals, including CALYX, andPALABRA. Her publications include the poetry collection,Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press 2008) and the multicultural anthology about bullying:Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions, Catharsis(Skyhorse Publishing, 2012) co-edited with Magdalena Gómez.      Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of theWeek widely. We just ask you to include all of theinformation in this email, including this request. Thanks! If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.     Split This Rock www.splitthisrock.org info@splitthisrock.org 202-787-5210

Support Split This Rock Please support Split This Rock, the national network of activist poets. Donations are fully tax-deductible.  Click here to donate. Or send a check payable to "Split This Rock" to: Split This Rock, c/o Institute for Policy Studies, 1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036. Many thanks! Contact info@splitthisrock.org for more details or to become a sponsor.