Ariel Francisco

IN RESPONSE TO PEOPLE TRYING TO RENAME THE SOUTH BRONX “THE PIANO DISTRICT”

Of course they only see the white keys— not the dark strings inside, veins that feed the heart, that do the actual singing.

LOOKING DOWN FROM ATOP THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

Such crowds flow through this city— the tops of their heads look like so many pennies at the bottom of a wishing well rippling beneath another tossed prayer.

TULIPS IN WINTER

Unblossomed on a windowsill, white heads bowed in surrender: ghosts that tremble in the wake of wrecking balls, that haunt men in hardhats until the walls crumble into the dirty slush. Where are the hands that placed them on that ledge, waiting for them to burst open? Soon, it will all melt into spring— that is, it will be forgotten.

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Ariel Francisco is a first generation American poet of Dominican and Guatemalan descent. He is currently completing his MFA at Florida International University where he is the editor-in-chief of Gulf Stream Literary Magazine. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Tupelo Quarterly, Washington Square, and elsewhere, and his chapbook “Before Snowfall, After Rain" is forthcoming from Glass Poetry Press. He lives in Miami, FL.