Diaspora Sonnet 25
The planet pulls our bodies through the year. Delivers us, headlong, into the tears in currents. The ebbs and flows of blood in chambers, bombastic and flooded with unremembered names. Neighbors bourne feet first through their door arches. Down the corridors, lonesome and lost. Their voices suture the silence behind them and the little song pulsing its staccato cannot explain the day and the day and the day, like an arm and then another pulled through a sleeve.
Copyright © 2018 by Oliver de la Paz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 3, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
“As part of a monthly Kundiman postcard writing exchange I started penning small sonnets on the backs of postcards and sending them to participating Kundiman fellows, faculty, and staff. This particular poem is based on a story a relative had told me about a loved one who had passed away and whose body was carried over the threshold of her apartment somewhat unceremoniously. I wanted to write a memorial of sorts but also acknowledge the indifference of the residents in the apartment complex where she was found.”
—Oliver de la Paz
Oliver de la Paz
Oliver de la Paz is the author of five poetry collections, including Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019). He is a founding member of Kundiman, and will be the Guest Editor for Poem-a-Day in October 2019.