(in memory of my father and uncles)
I am seventeen and go to Spain where I stare
at men with Spanish noses, Spanish chins.
While Madrileños do not seem to mind
or find it strange that a foreign girl would stare at them,
what they don’t comprehend is that
she’s staring at the nose and the familiar chin of a father
lost, and his lost brothers, whose Sephardic features must
have traveled centuries ago from Portugal and Spain
to somewhere distant from a Catholic King
and Queen, and, later on, across the ocean blue
to teal green Caribbean waters where they begat the grandfathers
of those she loved when she was small,
but now they’re lost—some from sickness, some from war.
But in life they did beget some handsome noses, handsome chins
I find in Spain and Portugal, when I, who lack
Sephardic features, as I lack Sephardic prayers,
visit the capital of Spain to see the Prado,
but, before I see the paintings (they are my prayers),
I admire another hombre de Madrid who’s not surprised
to have a strange girl fancying his Spanish nose and face.
That is entirely unsurprising to him.
AFTER 23 YEARS OF COLLEGE FRENCH TEACHING IN PENNSYLVANIA, SARAH WHITE MOVED TO NEW YORK, STUDIED PAINTING AND CONCENTRATED ON HER POETRY. SHE PUBLISHED 7 BOOKS, 2 WITH DOS MADRES INCLUDING “THE UNKNOWN MUSE” AND “THE POEM HAS REASONS,” A MEMOIR, AND WITH DEERBROOK EDITIONS, INCLUDING “WARS DON’T HAPPEN ANYMORE.”
