After the Honduras-El Salvador Soccer War of 1969
yesterday as her toes tapped
tapped
& stopped
stopped the soccer ball, she passed
past the reach of
legs that moved like scissors.
i screamed run, run, Cassandra,
RUN,
& tried to will her to hear the pangs of death
the soccer war of 1969,
my mother rock-
ing in her chair tapp-
ing my back, wait-
ing for air to rise out
of my chest like a sigh of a goal.
that was the year Honduran troops blasted caps of oil tanks
& the nighttime air became flares of body parts:
i couldn’t yet crawl or kick a soccer ball
but i could hear my father stomp, run
& run (and then stop to put on his uniform), stomp,
run
& run (and then stop to douse charred bones).
in between snapping the heads of chickens,
& bragging about the header that turned
the deciding home game in El Salvador’s favor,
he would carry tapped
tap water through fields,
stopping to reach the mouths of two-year olds like me,
the ones thirsting for a water’s drip,
drip (a sip)
or a touch of an absent father’s fingertip.
& yesterday, as a boy with wild hair & the wear
of a child (who wins with cheating grins)
caught up to Cassandra’s shins & slide tackled
her from behind, a ref looked down
at his own shoes without whistling & walked
away not listening to my protests. my toes
tightened into knots & then hardened
like heads of hammers, they tapped
down into blades of grass, as if pushing nails
into the palms of the earth.
her feet muddied & her knees scabbed,
she wiped dirt from her lips & pushed
herself back up to chase the ball. i willed
her feet to spell the words of war, to forget forgiveness,
to let the poetry of revenge of soccer warriors
be recited through her kicks,
to wind back her leg like
a slingshot, shoot the moon,
leave a sign that she was there,
to stretch the stitches of scars
& remind everyone of her country’s past.
but as her legs pulled her to the other side of the field,
her toes tapped
tapped the soccer ball forward into a lazy roll
that wandered with an aimless yawn.
i stood
stood
still.
waiting for the tremor that never came.
& after she went through the line of players
who high-fived each other
as if there had been no trip
tripping, she tapped
tapped my back &
walked forward
toward gulps
gulps of water,
as if that was all that mattered,
as if it was 1969 and she understood
about the sudden disappearance of fathers.
Brown University Librarian Strike--1990
One side of my lungs still carried smoke
From the strike at my father’s factory
So I carried my books cautiously
As I walked toward Brown’s rock.
Library staff weren’t alone
With their rolling messages,
Wages, benefits, justice,
As students in denim uniforms
Marched in unison, a platoon
Of conscripts registering on the spot.
What could they know about the fire
That forms when the metals of
Wages, benefits, and justice,
Are melted together?
I had heard some of these students’ comments
In literature classes, professing their love of Dostoyevsky
Without ever having had a key to the underground,
As if walking around Providence’s downtown
Was the same as being poverty bound.
I wasn’t about to trade in a zero in my poetry seminar
Just so they could feel like heroes for a semester,
So I lifted my legs as if I were stepping over mud,
And I dived into the literary section,
Into the PS call numbers
Reserved for American authors, but on this day
The books, standing shoulder to shoulder,
Seemed to be blocking my path,
Their backs faced me.
On my way to check my books out,
I avoided eye contact with the portrait
Of John D. Rockefeller, but was pulled toward
The image of Edward Inman Page
And a biography of his life,
… born a slave
… family escaped through Union lines
… one of Brown’s fist two Black graduates
… Ralph Ellison’s grade school principal
… pupils thought him a terror, not because
… of his punishments but because they
… abhorred the thought of their idol knowing of their delinquency.
Those last words, the final link to the chain
Of protestors outside, wrapped around my books
And weighed them down to the point
Where when I cited them in my presentation
The following week, they felt heavy like the signs
My father, my idol, carried for hours and days
In a hot haze as he and his sweated brothers from Local 2429
Tried to melt wages, benefits, and justice into one,
Staring down people like me who crossed picket lines,
Crossed as if we didn’t have to learn about trades,
Crossed as if all that mattered was the weight of good grades.
i couldn’t for a teenaged bully’s death
i couldn’t for a bully’s teen death—
shot in the abdomen three times—
trigger pulled by the hand of a child
who sought the bullet of a gun
to stop the bull’s horns
from digging deeper into his abdomen.
before he died in the shadows of Victorians on Coit Street
he stole fieldstones from walls—only to crack them against storm doors—
& stored rocks in his yard so he could pack them with snow & whirl
them toward the heads of anyone who tried tiptoeing past his high rise—
the giant outline of his cradled body captured the enormity of his hands.
at 10 he used those hands to shove chests—
the beatings wouldn’t rest against running backs—
even then he’d laugh as if was chasing rabbits—
it was his habit to make the smaller ones cower.
by his 13th, teachers began crouching—
there was one who cried as he walked out of the principal’s office—
it was as if he was offing them 1 by 1.
watching tv with the door locked—
that’s where i was when i heard that his hands had been stopped—
on the news they showed people putting their hands over their mouths
as their lips trembled and they spoke about the times, the crimes.
but my fingers, they stayed tight like fists—
i couldn’t for this bully’s teen death—
not when this would end the thumping on chests—
i couldn’t, though i wish my palms would at least rest—
wished his father’s bars, his mother’s scars,
hadn’t turned him—me—us into this.
Bio
Jose B. Gonzalez is the Co-Editor of Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature and the Editor of LatinoStories.com. His poetry has been published in numerous publications including Palabra, OCHO, Callaloo, and Colere. He is the recipient of the 2006 Poet of the Year Award presented by the New England Association of Teachers of English and is an award-winning educator. He has contributed critical and nonfiction essays to such journals as New England Quarterly and to National Public Radio. He has been a featured speaker at colleges and universities throughout the country. Currently a Professor of English at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, he lives in Quaker Hill, CT.