2 poems
By Sebastian Santiago
During a Shooting in a mall food court
-San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1996
My mother and I whispered our prayer,
hunched beneath that table Padre nuestro,
que estás en el cielo among the sound of the gun, and
its roaring death song santificado sea tu Nombre
we blew those words into our hands as if
we held kindling for fire to keep us safe in the dark;
venga a nosotros tu reino our minds, burning
like monks in protest.
We kept still and at mercy.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día The others nearby,
they scurried away. But we stayed, we prayed,
begging for forgiveness. perdona nuestras ofensas
It would be years before she would loose her faith
no nos dejes caer en la tentación but in that moment,
doubt
was a foreign tongue she had yet to speak.
y líbranos del mal.
My mother, rosary woven through
her fingers,
the dove in her chest
beating wildly.
The Meeting
-Warren, MI 1995
I remember when my mother first met the
other woman, Kim, as she sat in a parked
car with my father. My mother approached
them, holding me to the car window like a
sign in protest, her moral plea, a rag doll
on display, my arms, splayed apart, little
Redeemer, little me—
And I remember when I came upon her
later that evening, cowering over the
kitchen sink; her pruned hands purging
the dishes clean:
The tear, the scuff on the spoon, the
crust scraped off the edge of the plate,
the wedding ring, soap-slick and at
the finger's tip.
Sebastian Santiago
Sebastian Santiago is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, but grew up just outside of Detroit, MI. He attained his English degree from Central Michigan University where the focus of his studies was creative writing with a concentration in poetry. Sebastian was recently living in Prague teaching English, but has since moved back to the US where his focus is on attaining his MFA in creative writing.