Migrating Birds

By Mónica de la Torre Monica de la Torre

Victor gets a real sense of power

from making his own raisins. He buys

pounds and pounds of grapes

and leaves them to dry

on the kitchen table.

Theresa doesn’t want to hear about

her ex-husband’s cancer. Not on Father’s Day.

She takes a train all night

to have breakfast with her cousin.

All Sunday she rides the train back.

Once Martin’s wife had left,

he decided to take advantage of her space.

He built a sauna where her closet was,

and now sits there every morning

to read the paper and Buddha.

One night Helga wore her prettiest dress,

thought she knew he wouldn’t be there.

She drank white wine, got drunk

(she was on a diet), and fell down.

Later he saw the holes in her pantyhose.

María was usually bumping into

furniture. Each time she got closer to what

she wanted. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” he replied, so she took off

and felt like migrating birds. But many.

Source: Talk Shows (Switchback Books, 2006)

Biography

Poet, translator, and scholar Mónica de la Torre was born and raised in Mexico City. She earned a BA from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and, with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship, relocated to New York in 1993 to pursue an MFA and a PhD in Spanish literature at Columbia University.

With dark humor, de la Torre’s poems explore our constructions of identity and trajectory. Her poetry collections include . . .

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