The Kitchen

I think about the kitchen

with the transistor radio

above a small refrigerator,

the cat faced clock with a

long pendulum tail, cabinets

with plastic plates, the pot

with boiling water on a gas

stove patiently waiting for

coffee to be filtered through

a sock, and mother’s Rosary

hanging on a nail in a corner of

the eating room. in that kitchen,

I wanted to understand the

meaning of a young mother

working two jobs, the alternate

dreams prepared by her in that

little space for three kids...

The Nameless

to those whose names

are never cast in Bronze,

who live where the church

bells ring without speaking

dreams, and had countries

once on other shores. to the

people not remembered in

books, celebrated with great

monuments, subjected daily

in schools to manufactured

ignorance, who fall into the

earth without notice, work

to eat American and are not

recalled from the rising sun

until its going down. when

I plead for heavenly hope,

feel unbearably weary and

sick of heart, I remember

you. how...