PAUSE 

AND GO WITHIN

Poem For Today - March 10, 2014

The Cities Inside Us

 

We live in secret cities

And we travel unmapped roads.

We speak words between us that we recognize

But which cannot be looked up.

They are our words.

They come from very far inside our mouths.

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city

Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven

And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there

Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where

They went. They did not disappear.

We each take a piece   

Through the eye and through the ear.

It’s loud inside us, in here, and when we speak

In the outside world

We have to hope that some of that sound

Does not come out, that an arm

Does not reach out

In place of the tongue.

© Alberto Ríos, “The Cities Inside Us”

from The Smallest Muscle in

 the Human Body. Copyright © 2002

 by Alberto Ríos.