POEM OF THE DAY

Nada


December flows in a wave
of fiestas:
Concepción
Guadalupe
Navidad
always images of La Virgin
winter roses, jacaranda
crepuscular crows
in cypress branches
watching late processions.
Our Baptist friend calls these rituals
pagan, shaking his head at
lighted candles, nacimientos, muttering:
Nothing. Nothing.

Smiling, a girl of thirteen translates
for her mother. Nada, she says,
Nada. Her tongue between bright teeth
as she sounds the lisped D
breathes out the rich Ah
making the word echo in the darkening air
with another meaning
we almost remember.

"Nada" © copyright 1998 by Michael Hogan. Reprinted from Imperfect Geographies (Q-Trips, 1998).