Breathing Space. Harold J. Recinos

she gives

      thanks to spite her weary days on earth, while

      old impatient tears slide down her face singing

      on the way to the linoleum covered floor: your

      boy with the elegant brown eyes paces inside

      the heavenly gate reciting Spanglish prayers for

      you.

      Waiting

      whenever his lips move in

      public, despair comes to carry

      on work unfinished that makes

      us tremble, again. our eyes have

      never been more troubled by the

      mogul who is now an unrepentant

      president dressed with boastful visions

      that fill us all with shame. with a vain

      imagination, he sentences the earth

      to death, her humble guests with

      wretchedness, and keeps a pocket

      full of scorn for those who disagree.

      in the name of two silver coins, his face

      is turned aside from those who scream

      outside his door, while he sits in an oval

      office thinking of new ways to exhale

      sickness from his puffy cheeks unto the

      shuddering crowds. not a single rule of good

      is written on the heart of this cad in the White

      House who acts like a little king. wait, when

      the hour of the country is gone citizens will

      have a clear vision rolling to their feet of the

      country’s huge mistake.

      The Autocrat

      we are dropping bombs in this

      world as if innocent lives lost

      mattered not at all for the alleged

      superior and decent life defended.

      the last condemning explosion has

      not deformed popular understanding

      enough to make most citizens heave

      a huge pile of indecorous words at the

      man who denies scripting this horror

      show. as we sleep, the birds singing

      on the low branches of trees, the rivers

      left unprotected to service greed, the

      petals in the forest paler from decisions

      made up the hill, the land listed for

      consumption until it becomes a graveyard

      for our thinning skin—water, rocks, sun,

      moon, sky, seasons and years of work

      offered up to God who made bread of

      these are hurled into the abyss beneath

      our eyelids by presidential leadership

      clueless about crawling into it. under

      this shared weight, the face of the deep

      makes regular discreet appearances begging

      us to conspire not to let a shameless fool

      condemn this precious earth and make

      living things bleed until they become

      dust for us to mourn!

      Tops

      Joselito, the world’s greatest top

      spinner living on the block drew circles

      for the game even asleep. he knew how

      to perfectly wrap an old piece of string

      kept around his neck to a beaten

      up black toy that fell into his hands

      for fifteen cents and with a rapid-fire

      accuracy could throw that thing to split

      open any other top in a black tar ring.

      Joselito has grown old on the block, every

      now and then under a late-night street light,

      you can still find him throwing tops, then

      bending over with a hand on his knee for

      balance to pick the old-fashioned thing up.

      on those nights, he throws smiles too at kids

      spying him from apartment windows questioning

      why the old man still plays. the last time

      I shared words about hard times crumbling

      from the Bronx days, I could see he planned to

      prowl the years in front of him searching for

      the ultimate game, before letting his tired

      soul skip free.

      The Lincoln Steps

      there is a place in the nation’s

      capital on whose steps Martin

      gave a speech with every colored

      hand joined in a great dream, not

      a single difficulty of the day kept

      him from the march parading truths

      self-evident across the land to equal

      human beings. when the lights darkened

      on the ceremonious inauguration day of

      the wrecking ball president, thousands of

      women instead were kept from beginning

      their protest march on the same steps. the

      political air heavy with the words of the

      steward of repugnance dressed in finely woven

      cloth for photo shoots with mostly scandal to

      report. some say the light withdraws a little more

      each day from the first republican president’s place

      who died defending a democracy whose values can

      be seen in the words of the Gettysburg address and