The Train

Part I

And what do you do now,
glass-eyed woman staring at pipe dreams?
Are you filtering the void?
The lonely desolation
that seems only a whisper
we all too well encounter
in our minuscule millennium?

Is it the void you feel
envelops you in emptiness,
     in utter dissolution,
or is it only the hole
inside your old left shoe,
which covers that ratty sock
and troubles you?

Do not wait:
get off that train,
jump to that mountain,
enter its tunnel of black coal,
     of dirtied soothing
that sullies even your ink mascara
dripping down your drained, parched eyes.

Pass that child playing hopscotch,
jumping to the heaven of his dream
and go with him:
he’s waiting there for you.

Why sit each day-to-day
thinking empty nothings,
running through routinely soundless drudgery
of men and women gabbling
     talking saying nothing?

That child in his reverie
awaits you,
skipping jump-rope in his happy chant.

Go.

Part II

The woman, worn-out, glass-eyes empty,
retrieves her burden,
slowly dragging her turtle body,
broken legs of disenchantment
     as she plods away.

She glances back to the boy-child,
angel singing lullabies of orange melts
     and blue-eyed lollypops.
Still she yearns to fly with him,
but she knows her shoes are barren,
her laces are untied,
     her walk is silence.

And while she notes the heavens are illusion
and the boy a figment of her well-worn shoe,
her soul reverberates images of grandeur
to the absence of a long black twilight.

Part III

The train does travel onward up the mountain.
The darkness shrouds the empty space within the shadows.
And she stares down,

only    one    foot    swollen.

El tren

Parte I

Y qué haces ahora,
mujer con ojos de cristal buscando la quimera?
¿Estás filtrando el vacío?
¿Esa solitaria soledad
que parece solo un suspiro
repetidamente encontrada
en nuestro minúsculo milenio?

¿Es el vacío que sientes
te envuelve en el abandono,
     en absoluta disolución,
o es solo el agujero
dentro de tu viejo zapato izquierdo,
el que cubre un calcetín lleno de huecos
y te molesta?

No esperes:
bájate del tren,
salta a la montaña.
Entra en el túnel de carbón,
     de un calmante sucio
que mancha hasta tu máscara de tinta negra
goteando lagrimas, tus ojos drenados, secos.

Pasa al niño jugando a la rayuela,
saltando al cielo de un sueño
y ándate con él:
está esperándote allá.

¿Por qué sentarse, día tras día,
pensando nada, solo en la monotonía,
pasando a través de trabajos rutinarios, aburridos,
de hombres y mujeres parloteando,
     hablando siempre sin contar de nada?

Ese niño en su ensueño
te espera,
saltando a la cuerda en su alegre encanto.

Vamos.

Parte II

La mujer, gastada,
ojos de cristal vacíos,
recupera su carga,
lentamente arrastrando su cuerpo de tortuga,
y con sus piernas partidas en desencanto
     se aleja.

Otra vez más ella busca al niño,
ángel cantando canciones de cuna, de derretimientos de naranja
     y paletas de azules ojos.
Aún anhela volar con él,
pero comprende que sus zapatos son pobres,
sus cordones se han desenlazados,
     su andar cubre el silencio.

Y mientras nota que los cielos son ilusiones
y el niño un producto de su zapato viejo,
su alma refleja imágenes de grandeza
hacia la larga y negra ausencia del crepúsculo.

Parte III

El tren recorre hacia arriba por la cordillera.
La oscuridad envuelve el vacío espacio dentro de las sombras.
Y ella mira hacia abajo

solo      un        pie         hinchado.

---

Being an academic not paid enough for her trouble, Ana M. Fores-Tamayo wanted instead to do something that mattered: work with asylum seekers. She advocates for marginalized refugee families from Mexico and Central America. Working with asylum seekers is heart wrenching, yet satisfying. It is also quite humbling. Her labor has eased her own sense of displacement, being a child refugee, always trying to find home. In parallel, poetry is her escape. She has published in The Raving Press, The Laurel Review, Indolent Books and many other online and in-print anthologies and journals. Her poetry in translation and photography have been featured at home and internationally too. Writing is a catharsis from the cruelty yet ecstasy of her work, she claims. Through it, she keeps tilting at windmills.