SONG OF THE SEA WITH THREE LINES FROM CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE

Angela Narciso Torres

 

Why does the deep seem deeper, the sea

wilder this morning? Next to it, life

is a static sun without warmth or light.

Our backs, not bent over papers at a desk, uncoil.

Lungs fill with air. Freed from leather, our feet

leave blurred, disappearing shapes

on the wave-swept bed. Friendships, birthdays,

personal matters don’t count. Everything is relative,

 

says my uncle, lying half-blind on his sickbed

near a window so he can hear the ocean.

The breeze carries salt and decaying fish.

Unable to eat, he sips lemongrass tea, dreams

of garlic rice. Don’t sing about your city, leave it

in peace, he says, then asks to hear calypso.

Angela Narciso Torres
Angela Narciso Torres

Angela Narciso Torres completed her MFA at Warren Wilson College Program for Writers. Her poetry manuscript was a finalist in the Crab Orchard, Philip Levine, Brittingham/Pollak, and Idaho Poetry Prize contests. Recent work appears in the Baltimore, Cimarron, Colorado, Collagist, Crab Orchard, Cream City, and North American Reviews, and in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. She has received grants and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, the Midwest Writing Center, and the Ragdale Foundation. She lives in Chicago where she teaches poetry workshops and serves as a senior editor for RHINO.