Half Poem

After the war all that remains

reads as half scribbles of the half dead

 

language. I stop to eat an empanada,

half butterfly, by the lapping waves

 

& salivating dogs. Let the poem be the place

we touch our other halves, somewhere

 

between the parcels carried,

her cotton bag & face—Who is it you

 

remember? On 9th street half a sandwich

bares its chest to the public.

 

No sparrow. No hungry child. Only

half a gesture to feed the people

 

this country’s long forgotten.

Half a history spreads over

 

our dining table in waxy scratches,

its grooves undoing the swinging

 

door. Like you’ve lived here before.

Let the poem be the place

 

the ghost half haunts & rages at how

we’ve made of the tree—

 

rain, soil, light—a weapon

with which to close upon

 

the quiet, half-lit slivers

longing for nothing.