LAURA PIMIENT A 
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT 

The world pains me 
with the always present splinter that living is . 
A frosty winter night a baby is born, 
rivers of crimson, desire and doubt, gushing out of her unwrapped insides. 

The end and the beginning are both here 
to this world you have come already knowing the hurt of a broken bone 
outside, they do not know of you and neither do they care; 
a carelessly planted seed in a migrant's womb. 

You shall never belong. 

Your roots, your color and your name are flagrant reminders of your alien­
ation. 
In your homeland you would be an Aztec prince 
amid flowering dahlias, surrounded by the singing of sparrows 
and your hands would grow to grab the guavas from the tree 
and the waists of blossoming women 
with radiant copper skin under the eternally shining sun. 

But here you are 
in the coldness of a nation that does not want you, 
the bruises on your face glowing 
like the brightness of a brothel at daylight. 

Your body is restrained of movement, 
hungry young maggot wanting to stretch. 
Freedom is a lost country to you, 
the life that awaits you will be all too familiar to this feeling. 

The day nears with the hesitancy of the sun's rays 
like the shyness of a deflowered girl. 
The light coyly lures us out of our caves 
where they congratulate your parents in a foreign tongue 
they will never understand. 

38 

RYAN SMITH 
LUSK AT THE LAKE 

For his fifth birthday Lusk was 
given a birthday cake, but no cane 
no candles, his father said, 
a hand on his mother's shoulder, 
no force, but managing to hold he 
no candles. Have you seen 
what hope does to a man? 

Lusk did not understand. 

He had not yet seen Lake Superio 
grey water, not blue at all, 
a magnanimous periphery 
of shells that held no oceans, 

his father at the center of the 
long rope bridge, eyes wide, 
and Lusk sitting at the far 
end saying 

will you come if I meet 
you out there, and hold 
your hand? 

The waves coming and coming, 
stealing his answer.