Javier Zamora


NOCTURNE



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.