Latin America

Latin America © Gloria Macher

Latin America

There is a sun that laughs
lost in dreams
and happy curls of colourful birds
in voices singing hymns
ignited by fantasies and
visions of lost paradises
ignoring the waters of the seas
honed into piercing waves 
pummelling my tears with salt and earth
the kind used by the sailors of the ancient continent
to bury their dead
the same soil that buries our lives
that deceives us
granting us to continue
day by day
in that miserable little life of
who got more or who
will get more
without really wanting
anything
only
a bit of tranquility
who knows?
like the one that surrounded us
when we were innocent children
and filled our bellies
with papaya nectar

There is a sun that believes
it is holding me
without realizing 
my body is a mountain
of ashes
collected in urns
of gold and clay
like those ancient ones who loaded
not knowing
the weight of a future
cowardly and without mercy
like those that
made us believe 
we were supportive and
would never know 
what is to lower our heads
or open our legs
without permission
without desire
not as
when I am flooded
in that music that rocks
and shakes me
covered in honey
forgetting the gall
that devours my 
history
that crushes my senses
for centuries
and centuries

There is a sun that thinks it knows everything
annoying
that makes me sweat
feeling stuck without air
stored
in snowy peaks
in desert valleys
dotted with reddish blue
of troubled oceans
with palm trees and bougainvillea
dancers
ready to remind me of
the beauty of this land
run down by horses
and plundered by metallic boats
ready to take me
to bankruptcy
to the pain of hunger
and to those differences
of class
that snatch
my breath
suffocating me from
sulfuric acid
virtual wires
and the sound of a disturbing rock and roll
tasting of
cola without coca

There is a sun that does not stop rising
that haunts me
that does not turn off
that does not leave me alone
that does not let me live
that only makes me dream

Gloria Macher, a Latin-American writer based in Montréal, has won international awards for her prose and poetry. Author of seven books, she received the International Latino Award and was a finalist for the Verbum Ibero-American Novel Award and the IV Premio Internacional de Narrativa “Novelas Ejemplares” in Spain. She has also published in The Nashwaak Review, In/Words Magazine, Montréal Serai, and Kola Magazine. For more on Gloria Macher’s work, please visit her website.