How We Heard the Name

His name was an old picture 

framed in the wooden hearts 

of our family, the kind that is hung 

in every household because 

he’s the president, and it proves

our loyalty to king and country, 

but this name never clung to our lips, 

heavy on the tongue, so that 

we couldn’t even speak it

if we’d wanted to, a taboo disguised

in the cloaks of reverence, but naked

in our closet of secrets waiting

to be discovered. 

His name was hung

on the walls of our experience 

without really being seen 

because it’s been there for too long 

to remember who’d hung it,

until we were forced to move, 

box our belongings 

wrapped in newspaper and bubble wrap, 

where the name left a blank wall 

and became a trinket of value

we carried with us to our new home.

We didn’t hang it on wooden hearts 

made soft with understanding, or 

on stairwell walls waiting to carry 

the legacy of our family; instead 

we carried His name in our wallets

and shirt pockets, 

close enough to be heard,

near enough to be called upon 

when floorboards creak in the new house 

and everything expands in the heat.

 

 

Rafael Trujillo, last dictator of the Dominican Republic