A Small Motor
By Alberto Ríos
The easiest sadness is a boy
Watching another boy
Walk with a barefooted girl, clean
Perfect feet, that kind of nose,
Eyes like those he’s dreamed
In the dream that comes back.
A boy watching another boy lucky
Gets an ache
That is a small motor.
In me there is an animal,
And in that animal
There is a hunger.
I remember the boy
Watching a boy.
It was me.
Watching, I was a little bit
The boy walking.
I was both of us.
That’s how it felt.
What I could not have,
That’s what I was
Inside, an ache
Coming as I stood
Too many places.
Copyright Credit: Alberto Ríos, “A Small Motor” from The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body. Copyright © 2002 by Alberto Ríos. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body (Copper Canyon Press, 1989)