Only One

A poem for America

César Vallejo (March 16, 1892 – April 15, 1938)

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?

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TFP IS A PROUD MEMBER OF THE IOWA WRITERS COLLABORATIVE