you will tell me?
[The Woman in the Factory]
this woman has worked the morning
cutting zippers on a press without a
break, beads of sweat dripping from
her brow, and the hands that buttoned
her daughter’s Catholic school white
blouse, with dirt now beneath the nails.
quietly, she sees the dust on the factory
floor kicked up by the feet of the supervisor
with a cracked voice who for the last twenty
years has waited for a different job. she has
moved around the dim rooms of this work
place with a long list of nameless wage workers
who drank themselves to death. in her eyes you
can see the last shift sweetly rising and a closer
look discloses her long brown hands gently
lifted with piety to heaven for joy to come.
the other dust like her working the assembly line
with dreams of what lies ahead will soon see
not many more days will keep them from the
place this woman’s yearning soul visits for light.
quietly, after work she returns to the little girl sent
to school, the shared love, words and a delicious
single mom life.
[Sacred]
I noticed one afternoon sitting
on the stoop the quiet figure of
an old woman looking left and
right like she was about to reveal
something. centuries ago her
ancestors inhaled the mysteries
reflected through her wrinkled
eyes, they built the sacred cities
in the forests and the clouds, and
charted the movement of the stars.
and now this treasure sits on the
stoop next to me drying children’s
tears.
[The Star]
when the oldest star shines in heaven
to announce the coming visit, I will
look out the window for the hunched
old women, the junkies they fear, the
mothers who are hustling, the children
with tough questions and the excluded
on the streets. together, we will sing the
ancient ways to have you come nearer,
before our time is done. I will build a
cart for sorrows to collect the worried
news, every word that stumbles, the
cries for the forgiveness of the block’s
dead. I will walk the night with the
staring sky to knock on the weeping
doors, invite the aging forgers, trampled
prostitutes, unrepentant gangsters, predators,
murderers, thieves, even tired old priests,
to line up for bread in your passionate world
that comes. when the oldest star goes forth
in the sky, I will climb the tallest building
to cry like Hannah from the heart for you to
listen.
[The Longing]
the streets have grown a little older,
the wails of infants walked in strollers
hardly ever heard, the old Jewish
fiddler who played the alleys with
music from another world has long
been dead, the priest who everyone
said had kept a trench on his tongue
for just in case days was lifted to
paradise, and the piragüeros on the
boulevard come from Mexico, now.
when you forget what it was like on
the block come visit to stand in front of
Henry’s building that still has a Big H
painted on the second floor wall, lean against
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