All Poems

Lyric Poem

from Fragments of a Broken Homeland

Because Knowing Life Is a Sentence

Milton Amador

Because knowing that living is a sentence.

Because knowing that silence rots in the mouth,

And its worms tremble like seas of fireflies.

It was the wound of a shadow,

The vomit of exile,

The longing to die day by day,

To not dig a deeper hole

In which to bury fear.

What color does the stalk crawl in

When the wind no longer sings above it?

Against what wall does man hang his misery,

As if it were a coat soaked in blood and centuries?

How many footprints must cover the sand,

Tormented by forgetfulness?

Who measures the tremor of a tear

Before it touches the ground?

Where does the voice that was never shouted rest?

In what crack does fear bloom?

And who arranges the names

When even names have surrendered?