Читать книгу Stony the Road - Harold J. Recinos - Страница 20

the black dressed old women

in the bodega talk with the grocer

about the days when they feel

like the Holy Mother buying herbs

to make meals for aging boys on

the block, near balding men who

place big food orders for storefront

social clubs, and even a few honest

gumshoe Puerto Rican cops who

spend long nights watching over the

kids on the block. a young man stops

in the corner grocery store to buy

flowers resting in a lonely vase inside

a glass-door refrigerator where tiny

Puerto Rican flags fill a small box

pushed to a corner. Henry’s widow

briefly smiles in his direction moved

to know that every Friday Hector

enters the bodega to buy the prettiest

flowers on hand to show his devotion

to a beloved grandmother living in his

apartment who has never bothered to

learn a lick of English. the place is

jumping with people who never consult

academics happy in their far away

homes, theologians offering seminars

about a distant God, and fancy uptown

philosophers uncertain of what to call

black faces, the subtle mysteries of

barrio life, and the spaces where white

words only gasp for air.