The Nobodies
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Los nadies: los hijos de nadie, los dueños de nada.
Los nadies: los ningunos—Eduardo Galeano
1.
They rise from the dawn and dress. They raise the bundles to their heads And their shadows broaden— Dark ghosts grounded to nothing. They grin and grip their skirts. They finger the gold and purple beads Circling their necks, lift them Absently to their teeth. They speak A language of kicked stones. And it's not the future their eyes see, But history. It stretches Like a dry road uphill before them. They climb it.
2.
With small hands They pat wet earth Into brick. [End Page 873] And we wonder What they eat And why they believe In their gods With faces Like frightening toys. We pay what they ask, Minus something For our trouble, Wondering why they don't Pack up from the foot Of the volcano, Why they ruin their hands, Their teeth, why they swallow What they are given Without a smile, Or the hint of anger.
3.
A goat watches with eyes the inverse of danger, Knowing there will always be some wafer of meaning To savor on the tongue. Its munching Is belief in the body and in the long dry grass. What it finds, it takes into its mouth as proof That necessity is the same as plenty. The child who tends the goat Sits on his knees in the shade of a low tree. He considers what he knows. He lies down On his side, takes the teat Into his mouth and drinks. What he does not know Flickers in the breeze, brushes past his cheek, The tip of his ear, and is quickly behind him. [End Page 874]
4.
If it is true that the earth respires, That it speaks only to those Who command nothing— If it is true that the first man Was fashioned of corn. Of divine shit. Of dust— If a bale of cotton— If color is trance, And trance is to ride the back Of the first great bird In first flight— If the world has ended twelve times— If the atom is cognizant, coy; If light is both pow-wow And tango— If, at the final trumpet, Oil magnates will kiss the ankles Of earth-caked girls who traipse Along the highway's edge, Hugging the mountain When trucks barrel past— If Satchmo. If Leadbelly— If wind on the horizon, Thundering the trees, Making all of our houses small—
Tracy K. Smith is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University. From 1997 to 1999, she was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University. She is author of The Body's Question (Graywolf Press, 2003), as well as poems published in such periodicals as PN Review, Harvard Crimson, Gulf Coast, BigCityLit, Boulevard, and Callaloo. She has taught at Marymount Manhattan College, Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, and the University of Pittsburgh. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
