Eviction
the whites cry in their houses
because they’ve had to evict the guests.
the last names and the properties cry
because they’ve burned
the worms’ deeds.
how sad the disillusionment!
how sad the death of love and hope!
the writings cry for the forgotten oralities.
the coldness of the rebel incites the handkerchiefs to come out
and cry through the streets like mary magdalene.
the world ends and those who end it never end up crying,
but when they reach the water ay ay what laments
what bodies of water that flood the planet.
the buried mountains of my island
sit like lost treasures at the bottom of a sea
that is more spume than water.
this poem is personal.
as personal as colonialism and private property.
this poem doesn’t cry because it is worse than an evicted tenant.
this poem doesn’t have friends or time to move,
but still moves.
(a curse on the house that still smells like my mouth)
either way, what is a poem without the rent,
a couple without equality or love
between landlord and tenant?
wouldn’t pain be inevitable
if you don’t pay the first of the month?
they say that what i am saying is unfair
that really we should be careful.
we all have bills.
the world makes us cruel.
but i am not of the world,
not even of this planet.
i happened to land here
and my ship ran out of gas.
i stayed because i had no choice.
i fell in love because soy una pendeja
and because the people here are beautiful
when they don’t kick us out.
since my arrival,
i’ve had various lovely houses.
one had green walls
and a white and open kitchen.
another smelled like sage and rusty books.
my favorite had two cats and two people in love.
all evicted me to drain the roofs.
the houses with their whites cry
over the end of the neighborhoods
and with their white nostalgia
for the end of childhood and backyards.
by Raquel Salas Rivera
from Split This Rock
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