Una Noche de Salsa
Nathalie Handal
The night is covered with salsa tunes and blood transfusions,
with Willie Colon's "
gunshots, one after another, nothing new
when in the company of those selling death.
What better sales- "your dinero" and "your life"
for some marijuana, some perico, an overdose.
The night is furious, people's hands on their heads,
screaming, no one forgets the dead
screaming, we forget to love, drink una limonada,
forget to give un abrazo to our amorcito
to tell una historia to our ni–os.
and empty hospital rooms-
no visitors, too ashamed,
sings to us the stories of the streets of hell
and the killing darkness in parts of the
The night is covered with the trumpet's fury
echoing, now we see, now slowly we must go
now how do we leave
and I question:
were we happy once and didn't know.