where tiny
Puerto Rican flags fill a small box
pushed to a corner. Henry’s widow
briefly smiles in his direction moved
to know that every Friday Hector
enters the bodega to buy the prettiest
flowers on hand to show his devotion
to a beloved grandmother living in his
apartment who has never bothered to
learn a lick of English. the place is
jumping with people who never consult
academics happy in their far away
homes, theologians offering seminars
about a distant God, and fancy uptown
philosophers uncertain of what to call
black faces, the subtle mysteries of
barrio life, and the spaces where white
words only gasp for air.
The Crucified
the nameless people who are
the beautiful brown color of
the earth, those hard at work
for America’s gain, who fled
the blade on other shores and
here are daily silenced by hate
will never break. if only you
knew the Spanish they speak
to Angels of a dismayed God,
the freedom that stumbles in
their dreams, the pain in their
limbs, then you would know the
hungering words they speak that
yell darkness in days to come will
sink into the marsh and not a shred
of white wickedness will survive
to hammer into pieces liberty and
justice for them.
The Cross
I sat in the small apartment
observing the brown body
on a cross hung on the wall
above a television set begging
the face dripping dark tears
if it’s true the trampled who
shout up to heaven will have
life through the Galilean nailed
to a tree. I wondered for hours
about that brown body expiring
on the cross, the crime against a
human being of dark skin displayed
on a hill, a mother who cried for
her dying son, the false charges of
arrest that delivered him with
hands up to suffering and death,
how it all looks like what’s daily
going down on inner city streets.
I pondered long the tales of the
Word stooping down into middle
eastern flesh for all who need love,
the calloused men of arrogance and
greed consumed by sin, the ethically
innocent who wait for their dream
world to begin, then prayed for more
than miracles. I sat content to see
Jesus on the blistered wall, holding
in my hand the last look of the mothers
on the block who watched their kids
carried off to jail, those who walked
for hours on the streets and wanted so
badly to meet the loathed brown savior
who like so many black and brown
children meet death on a tree while
elated pale faces dance.
God
we looked for god on
Rikers Island getting
stabbed in his sleep,
with ex-dealers in cages
getting GEDS, pocketing
a certificate of completion
for spoken word classes,
or talking on the cellblock
with Tarzan.
we looked for god making
water into wine at the liquor
store, on the moist faces of
dope sniffing kids, in the alley
behind the abandoned
building on Simpson Street
at night taking a good old
wino piss.
we looked for god at the
Ortiz Funeral home where
bitter eyes wept for little
Carmen beaten into silence
by her pimp, in the Gideon
bible Tito lifted at the
