So much in these voices

the abstraction of stars and oceans

while blood runs in the memory

love poems

full of the dampness of yearning.

The streets are full of plastic bags

blowing, caught in the fingers of trees.

Better that than corpses.

The women hide while their memories

bang on the doors

without a warrant.

All of us are old enough to remember

the silence of stuffed ears

the silence of hands clapped over the mouth

the silence of walking down the street

hearing the footstep behind you

the silence of locked doors.

Judith Kerman was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in the Dominican

Republic in 2002. Her most recent books are Plane Surfaces/

Plano de Incidencia, a bilingual selection of poems with

Domingo, and Dulce María Loynaz: A Woman in Her Garden,

translations of the translations by Johnny Durán, published in

Santo Domingo, and Dulce María Loynaz: A Woman in Her Garden,

translations of the Cervantes-prize winning Cuban poet, published

by White Pine Press. She teaches English and coordinates

and teaches in the Masters program in Communication and Multimedia

at Saginaw Valley State University.