"Both" and "Simone"


can live together; heavy clouds

create an opening for sunshine,

the twittering birds fill

the air. But in Hong Kong

the heavy crowds...one million,

are but a moment, their voices

stilled by one person, and behind

her the person who holds

the reins of prison, silence

and acquiescence, but they can't

eliminate history, voices

that were flags, memories

that time cannot obliterate, Tiananmen

Square, the Tank Man,

the Umbrella Movement. Beneath

layers of lies, truth is a tree

that towers above barbed wire.




carries a whole world within him; the river

of his mother's endearing words that

have their own infinity, even though it has been

two years since her passing, the Adriatic,


a sea of contradictions with oil spills

and garbage, but also the boat of his

dreams large enough for a kitchen, bath

and bedrooms instead of the home


he lost. Corridors stretch inside him where

he and his mother were fishing under

the stars, streets that have no

markings, the smile of the young woman


he loves, the sound of her voice,

the days stretching before him that are

uncertain, some marked by closed

doors. He has yet to learn that to fall


is also to rise again, that within him

flows his loving heart beats,

and there is more in his life than

the pain that time inflicts.



Marguerite Guzman Bouvard is the author of ten books of poetry, two of which have won awards, including the Mass Book Poetry Award. She has also written numerous non-fiction books on women's rights, human rights, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, The Invisible Wounds of War, and books on social justice, illness and more. She supports the Mississippi Center for Justice.


Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, September 9, 2019 - 22:25