Inscape 04 FINAL - Pasadena City College

The baby laughs, the train groans into the station,
and teddy wishes he’d asked for Luisa’s number.
Two dark-skinned, shiny-haired kids
pile in with their panting father.
They all wear bright yellow t-shirts.
Isn’t it past their bedtime?
I turn over the abandoned ticket,
scribble a message on it,
and leave it for the next passenger.
As the doors begin to close,
I slip out into the dank and steamy station.
Coordenadas
I RMA R OSSANA P EREZ
I have just
realized
I am in a different latitude
from my homeland,
the language of this country,
is incomprehensible the names of
the streets and avenues
unpronounceable
the parks
overflow with the poor,
thousands of shadows
roving to the streets
without a safe shelter,
discrimination
is limitless,
individualism
is the law
governing survival,
the winters are long and severe,
hunger mortars
the bones of the majority
called a minority,
still I tremble
when I think of returning
to El Salvador,
only yesterday
I realized this,
yet I remain
here . . . .
INSCAPE • 48 INSCAPE • 49