Poetry
is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many
people, and April being Poetry Month,
The Latina
Book Club is celebrating by featuring Latino poets all week long.
We welcome to our site poet Ariel Francisco,
whom we thank for sharing his poem with us.
A VIEW OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
FROM THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
Locks cling to the bridge’s facade like
piercings,
inscribed with names in marker or lipstick.
Their keys sunken to the bottom of the East
River,
combinations lost in the brackish waters of
memory.
A man in a black trench coat sells the locks
to passing couples, encourages them to latch
their hearts onto the bridge that’s already
heavy
with rust.
Way out on the jilted water:
the silhouette of a dream-sized woman
standing
on a distant corner looks so familiar from
this far away–
arm raised to hail a cab that will never
come.
--Ariel
Francisco
Originally
published in Tupelo Quarterly
**Permission
granted to reprint. All rights reside with the author.**
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ariel Francisco is the author of ALL MY HEROES ARE BROKE (C&R Press,
2017) and BEFORE SNOWFALL, AFTER RAIN (Glass Poetry Press, 2016). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan
parents, he was raised in Miami and completed his MFA at Florida International
University. His poems have appeared in Best
New Poets 2016, Gulf Coast, Poets.org, Prelude, Washington Square, and
elsewhere. He lives in South Florida (for now).
READ LATINO.
READ LATINO POETRY.