The Shipwreck
by Isabel Acevedo
I live on an island. Since when? I can't
recall. It is always green, the ocean
only blue. One can eat all the fruit and
fish they wish. When one alone is always
only one. For miles and miles, no one can
speak to me. And I don't remember how
to speak. I must have had a mother once.
A mother to teach me language and love.
Yet, on this island, I have no mother.
I only find her ghost. Mother becomes
the new moon, a dark sky, the voice in the
ocean that foams at the mouth.
Listen there
are cries. Always outside myself. Crying
like a child, like so many children.
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