Naomi Ayala's "No. 13, for Remembering" (Split This Rock Poem of the Week!)

Poem of the Week:    Naomi Ayala          No. 13, for Remembering Two blocks away where yellow cabs zip by without stopping and the prostitute with the skinny legs asks for a cigarette from under her giant, black umbrella, in the corner's rain where some children are dangerous, can tell our future and bet on broken love between the dreams, I don't know where my hands begin and my heart ends. Oak trees line the sidewalk, small birds carry spring twigs above fast-food waste, and the bold races of rats, like ghosts of a lost memory, point to the day of the week. I don't know where the face of change is not my own face. A cold wind picks up. A man abandons himself to a tambourine and harmonica-- not praising, not denouncing, only leaving this place with this sound. I don't know where we will end up and begin but I want to note that we have been here, that we too were invisible and we too were seen. -Naomi Ayala From Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations   (Bilingual Review Press, 2013) Used by permission.      A native of Puerto Rico, Naomi Ayala is the author of three books of poetry, Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press), This Side of Early (Curbstone Books: Northwestern University Press), and Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations (Bilingual Review Press). She is the translator of a book of poems by the Argentinean poet Luis Alberto Ambroggio, The Wind's Archeology (Vaso Roto Ediciones: Mexico), winner of the 2013 International Latino Book Award for Best Nonfiction Book Translation. Among her other recognitions are a Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental Justice Award and Special Recognition for Community Service from the U.S. Congress. Naomi received her MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information 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.

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