ELEVEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT AN INAUGURATION

by Roberto Christiano

"I am out with lanters (sic) looking for myself."    

—Emily Dickinson

 

I am awake. I am a foreigner. Illegal. I am my 
parents. I know that I am not illegal. I feel that I 
am. I am scared.

My father was illegal. If you were stuck in 
poverty with Hitler’s trains running through you 
and countries crumbling before you, you’d be 
illegal too.

Musk gives the Hitler salute. Or is it the Roman 
salute? You know, the one you do to Mussolini.

My mother’s row house in the Italian section of 
D.C. was searched by the FBI for possible 
connections to Mussolini. Every Italian house 
was.

Male and female. Since when was that an easy 
divide?

Melania hides her face under a boater hat just as 
America hides her soul under a bushel.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

It snowed here. I can’t shovel. Uncontrolled high 
blood pressure. A man and his brother shoveled 
for me. Carlos and Zé. They won’t be here 
tomorrow.

I worked at the Library of Congress for twenty 
years. Our guards are the same as the Capitol 

guards. On January 6^th our guard was killed.
There are no degrees of separation. Separation is 
an illusion.

I am scared. I feel that I am. I know that I am not 
illegal. I am my parents. Illegal. I am a foreigner. 

I am awake.

Author’s note: Father married Mother and became a U.S. citizen. Mother was already a citizen.

Roberto Christiano won the 2010 Fiction Prize from Northern Virginia Review. He received a Pushcart Prize nomination for his poem, Why I Sang at Dinner, in Prairie Schooner. His poetry is anthologized in The Gávea–Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry (Brown University). His full legnth collection, Port of Leaving, is published by Finishing Line Press. Other poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Rattle, The Washington Post, Writer.org, and The Sow's Ear.

OCTOBER 2020

by Roberto Christiano 

"Fear of Pain," oil painting by Igor Shulman

I have heard the sirens falling

falling like the songs of sorrow

I have seen the black man hobbled

hobbled by the blues of bullets

I have smelt the forests burning

burning till the ashes whiten

 

I have seen the mermaids leaving

leaving as our rivers rumble

I have heard the children crying

crying with our cupboards empty

I have smelt the fear of winter

winter with the sirens calling

 

Roberto Christiano won the 2010 Fiction Prize from Northern Virginia Review. He received a Pushcart Prize nomination for poetry in Prairie Schooner. His poetry is anthologized in The Gávea–Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry (Brown University). His chapbook Port of Leaving was published by Finishing Line Press. Other poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Washington Post, Writer.org, and The Sow's Ear.

REQUIEM FOR THE TREE OF LIFE

by Roberto Christiano

Magnified and Sanctified be your name.

When I was a young man, full of youth
and ardor and ideals, I took modern dance
at Dance Place in Dance Alley,
Adams Morgan, the Hispanic Section of D.C.

I never was a dancer but I was an actor
and I needed a pliable body to express
my characters.

At the end of every class, Carla Perlo,
our teacher, would say, “May your names
be written in The Book of Life.”

Somehow I suspected my name would not
be on that list, not because I was a gentile,
but because I was unworthy.

But that was when America
was the America of the beautiful
Hippie spillover and such blessings,
while not ordinary, were not extraordinary.

My body is older now,
and will not tolerate modern dance
or even bend to jazzercise,
despite the willingness of spirit,
or the voice of blessing.

I think about The Tree of Souls in the movie Avatar,
a great enormous weeping willow—instead of leaves,
crystal glowing stalactites which turn a most delicate
violet pink in the night. If The Tree of Souls is destroyed,
as it almost is, it will be the end of civilization.

And now I know as I go into Saturday mass,
a week after the Pittsburgh news,
at Our Lady Queen of Peace,
that two miles down the road
at Beth El,  Shabbat is there,
and I hear again the prayer.

And so I pray in the only way I know,
to the crucified rabbi,
with death only a heartbeat away,
and eleven candles lit,
and I sing,
all are worthy. all are worthy here.

May your names be written
in The Book of Life,
May your names be carved
in the bark of The Tree of Life,
May your souls dwell in
The Tree of Souls.

Shabbat Shalom.
Shabbat Shalom.

Editor's note: This Saturday, November 24, marks the one-month anniversary of The Tree of Life shooting. 

Since then, two people were killed and two others shot in El Dorado Arkansas on October 28; two people were killed and three others shot in Vallejo, California on October 30; a woman was killed on November 1 by the same man who killed two men the day before; two people were killed and four wounded in a Tallahassee, Florida yoga studio on November 2; a gunman killed twelve people including a sheriff's deputy and wounded many more at a college bar in Thousand Oaks, California on November 7; three people were killed and another shot at a bar in Globe, Arizona on November 11; three people were killed and one wounded in a shooting at a home in Dunn, North Carolina on November 12; four people were shot and killed in Tsayatoh, New Mexico on November 13; three people died after a quadruple shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on November 14; and four people died on November 17 in 2 separate shootings in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Yesterday, two women and two men were found in a home in Philadelphia with gunshot wounds to the head; a police officer and two other people were killed in an attack at a South Side Chicago hospital; and one person was killed and four others injured in a shooting  in downtown Denver.

Roberto Christiano won the 2010 Fiction Prize from The Northern Virginia Review for "The Care of Roses." He was also a Pushcart Nominee for poetry published in Prairie Schooner. His chapbook, Port of Leaving is published by Finishing Line Press. His poetry is anthologized in the Gavea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry published by Brown University.