Sulyeon (Poem)

She's wearing a long white dress.
A wide sun hat covers her head.
The pond sparkles in green and blue.
She walks slowly, deliberately.
As if she doesn't want to disturb
images that were never there.

The kids play nearby. She laughs.
She smiles. She moves gracefully,
regally almost. Swans and frogs bow
as she walks past.

She looks beyond the pond.
She looks for someone
that was never there.
She looks
with her almond colored eyes.
She looks
while her long ebony
locks frame her face.

Is this true? She asks the pond,
glimmering in green
and blue.
Will thought one day
become memory?

As I close my eyes,
memories that were
never mine flash
past and into
the future.
Perhaps.
Perhaps
not.

(2016)        

Nostalgia (Poetry)

 (Note: This is for Germán, Ricardo and Berto. Thank you, gentlemen.)

Nostalgia

We were

four.

The music from heaven

synced our footsteps.

Laughter and faulty chromosomes in ink

bonded us forever.

The sky was unreachable,

but we had to try anyway.

I miss that.

I miss walking long capitalist hallways,

dressed like hip lumberjacks.

A couple of bucks in our pockets,

a play yard singing with beeps and whistles.

We could be anywhere, anyone, anyhow.

Look at us, we didn’t

look like you.

We didn’t look like you

wanted us to.

Darkly dressed in denim and Doc Martens.

We didn’t look like you.

We didn’t want to.

You said so much,

without saying anything at all.

We could look through all the windows.

Or did you not expect that we could see to see?

But, we were

four.

We had each other,

and pages and pages of brightly colored capes.

And blurry blue spines on fields of green.

And swords and sorcery, and bags full of

 rolling numbers.

We had it all,

            though our hands hit empty against the

wall.

We were

four.

And together

 we

 survived. 

(2013)