They Say the Santos Sang Through You
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- They Say the Santos Sang Through You*
A white room with white curtains, white walls.White tiled floor. The white sheets,crisp and clean, flat across the bed.You lie there, looking up at the ceiling.The white footsies to cover my steps.You mumble something about a missing glassor a song misplaced. I touch youwith white gloves. So quiet.The nurse's white uniform. White traybeside your bed. Your white medical braceletthere. It hurts your wrist you say.Your black skin against all that white.Somehow you still look pale.Your white nightgown. Your white sweater.The island heat does not smother you.You call me by my aunt's name,move your eyes across the ceiling, back again.The white crescent moons of your nails.Your hands telling me your pocket bookdisappeared, asking where is your sister?The whites of your eyes, small and smaller,as you squint to take a better look at me.And you call my name. Morena, you say.The white of your teeth when you smile.The white of your teeth when you sing:Under the water, I'll live. I live, counting the waves. [End Page 780]
Ines P. Rivera Prosdocimi recently received the MFA in creative writing at American University. She has published poems in Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Borderlands, Palabra, Revista Lengua, Bellevue Literary Review, Hispanic Cultural Review, and Afro-Hispanic Review.
Footnotes
* for Josefa Rivera Rincon
