His classmate complains when
the student in the back row
falls asleep in class
for the third time –
so afterwards I tell the man
that if he has to skip a couple
of nights to catch up on his rest
I wouldn’t count the absence
against him. I’m sorry, teacher

he says, but no. I have to come
to school because all day
he works in a factory
and hardly speaks to
any of his co-workers

and when he stays at home
at night it’s dark inside
the studio apartment
which has no lights.

He’d be alone then
with his lonely thoughts
of wife and child whom
he’d left behind in China
in order to find work
in the United States.

The next night
I bring the man a lamp.
At the end of class
he holds it up
to wave good bye,
and Thanks!

Like the Statue of Liberty,
someone says – they laugh
as they all walk out the door.

# # #

Mary Torregrossa is a story-listener as well as a story-teller. Her poems appear in Bearing The Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems, in Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, and in Voices From Leimert Park Redux, an anthology of “observers and keepers of culture” from the World Stage in Los Angeles. Individual poems are part of Poet Laureate Juan Fellipe Herrera’s Poems for Unity project as well as Lament For The Dead, a project honoring victims of gun violence. Mary is a winner of the Arroyo Arts Collective Poetry In The Windows community event and named Newer Poet of Los Angeles XIV by the prestigious Los Angeles Poetry Festival.

Photo:  Jackie Ramirez