THROUGH THE CRACKS

By Susana Praver-Pérez

En la esquina de Diez de Andino,
          a barrier
keeps pedestrians off the sidewalk.

We walk in the street
          for safety,
balconies above
          shedding layers
               like a molting snake,
rusted rebar akimbo
               in the air.

El agua y los años crumble concrete,
           brittle as fraying lace.

I see the sky through a broken techo,
           alcanzo el cielo
                con mis ojos.

Graffiti cascades on this corner -

          una rana con gafas
          Rafi ama Marta
          ¡ Fuera LUMA !
               BASTA YA


City workers sprayed it all
          a near-white gray,
          whitewashing decay
like 1980s faux flower decals
         on plywood boarded windows
              of burned-out buildings
         along the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Memory is a highway on a bridge
          to the past.

Through a broken roof, I see the sun -
          the same sun antepasados greeted
               from their balconies,
          saludos and scent of café
              wafting from below.
The morning’s buen dia is a threatened
   species falling through the cracks.

I want to sink into the cushions of a
rattán sofa in the long gone sala de mi
                suegra,
     family thick as a bush
           in full bloom.

Nostalgia is a blessing and a curse,
        a womb and an anchor
        wrapped around my limbs.

What should I clasp
          in my anxious grip?
What weight to let sift
         like sand through my fingers?

Even as a broken techo trickles rain
          down a stained wall,
we see the sky, the stars
         spreading across the night—
              remember
        we are touchpoints
             in the ether.