"He repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet." 
                                                             - Gabriel García Márquez

POEM OF THE MONTH

 

Ajo

Rare was the town in Puerto Rico

without a Plaza.

My uncle Colón, sold ajo from one

old plaza to another.

His carreta, filled, almost always

pulled by an old Spaniard 's horse.

He once told me he remembered them

right after they lost the war to iron ships.

They marched in groups of twelves

como huevos.

Their eye contact like mal de ojo, dared

to intimidate a lower price.

They talked among themselves

like horses behind barb wired fences.

He dangled bulbs before these soldiers

who no longer saw themselves as kindred.

He sold them ajos.