SOUTHERN HUMANITIES REVIEW
  • HOME
    • EVENTS
    • Pushcart Prize Nominees
    • RESULTS: Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York 2022
    • RESULTS: Editors Chapbook Prize for Fiction 2021
  • CURRENT ISSUE
    • ONLINE FEATURES
    • REVIEWS
    • STORE
  • ARCHIVES
    • The 1960s
    • The 2010s
    • The 2020s
  • SUBMISSIONS
    • Submit
    • Auburn Witness Poetry Prize
  • ABOUT
  • HOME
    • EVENTS
    • Pushcart Prize Nominees
    • RESULTS: Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York 2022
    • RESULTS: Editors Chapbook Prize for Fiction 2021
  • CURRENT ISSUE
    • ONLINE FEATURES
    • REVIEWS
    • STORE
  • ARCHIVES
    • The 1960s
    • The 2010s
    • The 2020s
  • SUBMISSIONS
    • Submit
    • Auburn Witness Poetry Prize
  • ABOUT
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

ONLINE FEATURE

Nocturne

By Javier Zamora     Undocumented Writers





Mamá, you left me. Papá you left me.
Abuelos, I left you. Tías, I left you.

Cousins, I’m here. Cousins, I left you.
Tías, welcome. Abuelos,
we’ll be back soon. Mamá, let’s return.

Papá ¿por qué? Mamá, marry for papers.
Papá, marry for papers. Tías, abuelos, cousins,

be careful. I won’t marry for papers. I can’t
vote anywhere. I’m free
underwater. I won’t
marry for papers. I won’t
be back soon. I might
marry for papers
. I will
etch visas on toilet paper and throw them from a lighthouse.




JAVIER ZAMORA was born in El Salvador and migrated to the United States when he was nine. He is a 2016-2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow and hold fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University, The MacDowell Colony, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Yaddo. He is also the recipient of a 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. His poems appear in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, and elsewhere. His first poetry collection is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.

CURRENT ISSUE
SUBMIT
EVENTS
ARCHIVES
STORE

Vertical Divider

CONTACT
SOUTHERN HUMANITIES REVIEW
9088 HALEY CENTER
AUBURN UNIVERSITY
AUBURN, AL 36849

shr@auburn.edu
334.844.9088

Vertical Divider
Official trademark of Auburn University

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS