Love poem

1. we smell the wounds hear the red vowels from your tongue. the old ones say we don't die we are just passing through into another place. I say they have tried to cut out your heart and eat it slowly. we stretch our ears to hear your blood young warrior.

2. where are your fathers? i see your mothers gathering around your wounds folding your arms shutting your eyes wrapping you in prayer, where are the fathers? zootsuited eyes dancing their days away. what have they taught you about power and peace....

3. whose gold is carrying you home? whose wealth is walking you through this urban terror? whose greed left you shipwrecked with golden eyes staring in sudden death?

4. you were in a place hot at the edge of our minds. you were in a new world a country pushing with blk corpses distinct with paleness and it swallowed you whole.

5. i will not burp you up. i hold you close to my heart.

--SONIA SANCHEZ Excerpt reprinted from the book Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems, published by Beacon Press.

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