born from clay
we are molded like kindergarten play-dough letters
taught to piece together this puzzling world with language
true story:
a fifth grade class in an Ann Arbor school
asked to come up with the definition of “state”
brainstormed four words:
land, people, government,
BORDERS
news flash:
Congress and Commander in Chief
approve a 700 mile wall
between the U.S. and Mexico
us and them
those whose tongues cannot embody the way we manifest
n’ abide by the rules of the empty complex
we’re not much for open spaces
gelatin brains smushed into right angles
minds coded library shelf defined
like property lines divide
what’s mine is mine
how greedy can one people be?
why can’t they be content with where they be?
and leave us in peace to dig trenches in sandboxes
there are manmade canyons too wide to yell over
it is the space between that leaves us empty
the distance that snares us blind
it is a learned behavior
in social studies, we read 500 years of history condensed into 500 words
drew pictures of all the earth’s people with four colors of crayon
were taught that there was one right answer
that definitions are written in stone
the world split in two: fairytale good and evil
this is for the 12 million mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons
who live every day trying to cloak themselves invisible
fretting over empty spaces on school permission slips and hospital bills
hiding in kitchens and janitor closets
dressing in standard uniforms to blend in
this is for my Chicano friend who stumbles on Shakespearean slang
falls back into questioning
what good is a diploma if you can’t submit it to a college or official job
what does a high school education matter
to a teenager who believes
he will always be the ‘Indian in the Cupboard’
the Mexican in the dishroom?
this is for every couple
whose youngest child is the only member of the family
with a social security number
for the despair in knowing that no matter what country you are in
you will always have to face foreigner
we are one world
with parts pitted against each other
likes cherries colliding
how sweet it’d be to be
jam
be we are jammed
our mouths programmed sour
we are a melting pot of skin and stories
that is getting too picante
so now we’re scrambling for the lid
in lunchrooms, we were taught not to cut in line
or take things that didn’t belong to us
in history, we were taught about the gold rush
but never told that it began ten days after the U.S. stole that land from Mexico
we were taught to close doors behind us during fire drills
but we’re ignoring the students left behind to the blaze
forgetting to remember who has matchbooks
hidden under the skeletons in their walk-in closets
in science, we were taught that wind and water can reshape stone
and so i too know that the breath and spit that make up my voice
can chisel new meanings
true story:
we are building a seven hundred mile metaphor 
a pin to keep a shrieking tire from deflating
it is blood-like hot in the desert
there is a rusty red sedan baking lifeless in the sun
an old man struggles it forward towards a line in the dirt
his gas tank empty
as the space between
a wide open wasteland
closed like a trap
-Coert Ambrosino
J'ai rencontré Coert lors de la dernière édition de LEAF. J'ai trouvé intéressant de vous faire connaitre un poète contemporain.
Pour ceux qui le souhaitent, je tiens à leur disposition un essai de traduction...
Plus d'images sur le mur : link
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Voir passer des bus... j'en avais rêvé.
