City Moon

By Francisco Aragón Francisco Aragon

Perfect disc of moon, huge

and simmering

low on the capital’s filthy horizon— ¡Ay,

qué luna más hermosa! she says

pushing the stroller slowly down Atocha.

And gorgeous too the firm-thighed

boys from Lisbon

a block away, who work

Kilometer Zero’s sidewalk, the neon

shoestore they lean against

cupping the flames

of passing strangers.

The sky above Puerta del Sol turns

a darker shade of blue. Who says

it doesn’t become night’s

one eye

as it scales the heavens, paling

and shrinking before it moves

across a late June sky? And below,

men persist and circle

the plaza, twin fountains brimming

over their brilliant waters. Hours

from now with the heat

waning, the same moon will spot

the figure of him

making past Neptune, the Ritz

the orange jumpsuits

hopping off trucks to sweep

and spray, hosing

down those electric streets.

Source: Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2005)

Biography

Poet, translator, essayist, editor, and San Francisco native Francisco Aragón studied Spanish at the University of California at Berkeley and New York University. He earned an MA from the University of California at Davis and an MFA from the University of Notre Dame.

Exploring how language and genre both connect and diverge, Aragón’s poems locate personal experience within a wider cultural and historical conversation. Aragón’s . . .

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