Only One
A poem for America
Only One
From all of this I am the only one who leaves . . .
— César Vallejo, Paris, October 1936
And those who chose to stay?
What kept them there, a child
Reaching upward each day?
The mortgage they had to pay?
I have my mother, my father,
My cradle lined with hay.
Spain calls my name, always,
My brother’s shadow remains.
What banker they befriended?
What graves they tended?
Guns, mud, money, sway.
What officials visit at night?
What haunts the city of light,
What the poet didn’t say?