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POETRY MONTH! SPOTLIGHT ON ARIEL FRANCISCO (INCLUDES POEM)


  
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).



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