Sunday Morning: Lloren Torres
She cried in the church aisle when I touched her arm like I was her son in prison in Cataño, like we are all strung together: wet clothes clipped to the same line. I wanted to say, “Take care of yourself: cuidate.” Instead I said, “Ciudad.”
She must think of its downpours and dead ends and hate this city. She invited me for coffee anyway, in the afternoons when her daughter is there to translate. My tongue will keep saying it meant to until the training breaks it: those wide Spanish vowels, the pain pronounced.
I walk the length of a graffitied wall with my fingertips, the colors lead to thunderstorm, a something bittered with lime. The words run in my mouth’s gutters then dissolve into the humidity. Our atmospheres collect rain to fill the potholes, to offer strays a drink.
In our dream band, on güiro:
Kate Sanchez earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago, where she received the Lannan Poetry Award. She formerly served as Poet Laureate of her hometown, Hanover, Pennsylvania. Her creative work has been published in various journals, including The Stillwater Review, Seminary Ridge Review, Apiary, and The Columbia Poetry Review, and she is a co-author of The College Mindfulness Workbook (Kendall Hunt 2021). Kate works as an Assistant Professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia.
Cuban
Ran Off With the Star Bassoon 