ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Author photo by Billy Bustamante
Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet and the author of Fractures, selected by Natasha Trethewey as the winner of the 2019-2020 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Winner of the Atlanta Review International Poetry Prize and the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry, Gómez has been published in New England Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Yale Review, BuzzFeed Reader, The Rumpus, Rattle, CHORUS: A Literary Mixtape (Simon & Schuster, 2012), and elsewhere. Carlos is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Poets Resist
Edited by Alicia Cole
March 22, 2020
Edited by Alicia Cole
March 22, 2020
Above the Speed Limit
The first time
I got pulled over I turned
to the classical station, rested
shaking hands on the steering
wheel, elevated my voice an octave,
& blinked wide & scared
so he could see the white
of my eyes & emerald irises
in the late May sun. He didn’t ask
my name. Never saw license
or registration. Said: Just take
it easy. So I did. So I do.
But my son, fourteen years
& two months from his first
driver’s test, is Black — what will
he do? How much of my stare
& smart mouth are imprinted? How
will he understand why I can’t sleep
each night he’s away from home
& I look just like the men
who too easily mistake
the dark silhouette
of his wallet
for a gun?
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
