El vendedor de paletas
I can see him through your eyes:
the small boy with a pushcart
outside the escuela primaria
students let out for break
running and laughing
that burst of physical impulse
they will forever associate
with release from obligation
stones kicked in a game
clumping of friends telling stories or a joke
alit with excitement when they hear the call
of the boy outside the fence
they rush toward him
small hands reaching into pockets
for a few pesos
the day is mountain-warm
brighter now seeing the colorful small rows
of creamy popsicles
cold sweet relief within grasp.
You are drawn to the young vendedor:
he should be on the other side of the fence
he should have coins that jingle in his pocket
he should have the burst of adrenaline
as he leaves his mathematics notebook
on the table and rushes to the fresh air
muscles tense with the sprint
laughter on his lips
the anticipation of delectable fruit
today maybe passionfruit or pineapple
the taste of last week’s chili-watermelon
flooding his memory
the careless disregard of the wooden stick falling to the ground
when he has savored the last mouthful
the momentary sadness when his tongue
touches nothing but wood
a physical border between freedom and obligation
pleasure and the pang of its absence
a boundary as uncrossable
as playground and sidewalk
the one who sells popsicles during the school day
and the ones who never think
about the boy behind a cold storage cart
heavy with bags of ice
navigating up and around uneven cobblestone
moving quickly to get to another school
on the other side of the winding streets
before the ice melts
or the children go in.
The scene has never left you:
you don’t know what to do with it
it nestles uneasily in the painful place of a
wrong you cannot right
you think perhaps if more people could see him
could feel the tension of the one too-young to be selling
the too-hungry family that sends all out to work
the guilt of the well-enough fed to close our eyes
to impoverishment around us
you want others to know
to melt indifferent minds and hearts
to be released from the pain of holding this image secret
somehow you think you are not the right person
to tell his story.
You ask the poet to write about the boy
and the poet writes about the man.
Even now, your wish unanswered.
Now I’m confused. Is there actually a “you” you are addressing? Or is “you” you? If the latter, which is what the poem (except the last few lines) would make me think, then, again, why the distancing? Or, does it just hurt too much to not have distance?
Were there lots of scenes like that that you saw? That Instagram photo of the man and the little girl cried out for words/a poem.