the cherry end of your cigarette against the pale sky
outside the prickling air burned hot
against what we’d left behind
and all that we scraped and cupped
ourselves for while trying to catch
the last vestiges of someone’s history
their life here and back and somewhere
in that hummed and whistled journey
across the plains and valleys and state lines
invisible to hunger and thirst
and the pursuit of want and need
tomorrow the railroad tracks
will shimmer in the heat
of the summer that arrived
as we were heading out of town
because as in those things past
we too have someplace we need to go
what does it matter
that there are no words
to compensate for the longing
and emptiness of the evening’s solitude
brought in by the winds
of our own stormy reluctance
unwilling to settle for anything less
than what we give in our taking
our own words muted by a laughter-less language
rattling bucket-empty like a windmill
spinning against a prairie horizon
that does not distinguish between
yesterday or tomorrow
them or us
his or hers
yours or mine
it was what you didn’t say
that caught my attention
and how you pressed your lips to the wind
your eyes blazing in the moonless night
Copyright © 2024 by Levi Romero. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 8, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
“The poem was inspired by my oral history project, Following the Manito Trail, [while] documenting the diaspora of northern New Mexico Manito culture in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Following the Manito Trail is an interdisciplinary ethnographic project that documents Hispanic New Mexican, or Manito, migration from New Mexico to different parts of the United States. The Spanish words manito and manita come from the words hermanito and hermanita, which mean ‘little brother’ and ‘little sister,’ [respectively]. They are terms of endearment often used among Spanish-speaking communities in New Mexico.”
—Levi Romero
Levi Romero
