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English Words

By José B. González

my mouth agape           for these english words          made of stone
their sharpness              could split my tongue,            but one by one
i’ll use them                     to build a wall,                           one by one
i’ll stack them                 on top of each other                smooth them
and scrape way              the sounds that                         silence me.
Added: Thursday, March 9, 2017  /  From "Toys Made of Rock," (Bilingual Review Press, 2015).
José B. González

Jose B. Gonzalez is the author of Toys Made of Rock (Bilingual Press, 2015) and When Love Was Reels (Arte Publico Press, 2017), and the co-editor, with John S. Christie, of Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature. He has been anthologized in the Norton Introduction to Literature and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. His work has appeared in publications such as Callaloo, Calabash, the Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Quercus Review, and Palabra. He has been a contributor to NPR, and has presented at numerous colleges and venues throughout the country and abroad. He has been the NEATE Poet of the Year, and is a Fulbright Scholar. He currently teaches at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT.

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