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| AI-Generated graphic from Craiyon |
Let me not forget the volunteer interpreter,
his black bangs, a curtain raised in this dim room
as if to let in any word: hambre, matanza.
His hands, sallow, unwrinkled. He offers
the pro bono lawyer starvation, death,
what propelled the woman seated to his left
2,000 miles on foot and crammed in vans,
a path our young interpreter already knows
not in Spanish/English, but in thirst, in ditches
become a bed, saguaros lurking overhead.
Still he comes here every Monday night.
His gift, to translate horror free of charge.
Paula Finn has been nominated for a 2026 Pushcart Prize. Her poems appeared recently in Common Ground, Bicoastal Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Spoon River Review. On the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Finn spearheaded a piece of musical theater capturing that historic tragedy and the female immigrant worker organizing that arose in its wake. Featuring Finn's poetry set to music composed by the late composer Elizabeth Swados, the dramatic oratorio, Triangle: From the Fire, won the Best New Musical Theater award at the 2011 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.