Barrio Obrero to La Quince
Walking is a process in ruins,
a dead history.
You inhabit the ruin and you find
a coin here and there rolling on the ground.
Men without eyes are threshing away time
in Santurce’s surviving businesses.
It makes you want to cry
or sneak into the yards and pluck the fruits
of so many inhabitable houses
with boarded-up windows and doors.
The city is full of homeless people.
The city is full of poor immigrants dreaming of the United States.
Perhaps leaving and coming back makes you a foreigner.
There’s so much you don’t know about Puerto Rico now.
You begin discovering it by walking.
by Nicole Cecilia Delgado
from the Academy of American Poets
translation: Urayoán Noel
Original Spanish @ Read more
De Barrio Obrero a La Quince
Caminar es un proceso en ruinas,
historia muerta.
Habitas la ruina y encuentras
una que otra moneda rodando por el piso.
Hombres sin ojos desgranan tiempo
en los negocios que sobreviven en Santurce.
Da ganas de llorar
o de meterse al patio y arrancarle frutas
a tanta casa habitable
con las puertas y ventanas clausuradas.
La ciudad llena de personas sin hogar.
La ciudad llena de inmigrantes pobres que sueñan con Estados Unidos.
Irse y volver acaso te vuelve un extranjero.
Desconoces ahora tanto a Puerto Rico.
Caminando se empieza a descubrirlo.