Mariano Zaro is the
author of four poetry books: Where
From/Desde Donde (Bay Books, Santa Monica), Poems of Erosion/Poemas de la erosion (Carayan Press, San
Francisco), The House of Mae Rim/La casa de Mae Rim (Carayan Press, San
Francisco) and Tres letras/Three Letters
(Walrus-Morsa, Barcelona). His poems have been included in the anthologies Al Aire Nuevo (San
Luis Potosí , Mexico ),
New Baroque (Los
Angeles ), LA Melange (Los Angeles ), River’s Voice (Los
Angeles ), The Seattle Muse (Seattle) and Luces y Sombras (Tafalla , Spain
As a fiction writer, his short stories have appeared in several literary journals in Spain and the United States: Menos 15, El signo del gorrión, Caracola, The Louisville Review, Poeticdiversity, The Baltimore Review, Pinyon, Magnapoets and The Portland Review. In 2004 he received the Roanoke Review Short Fiction Prize. He has translated American poets Philomene Long, Alicia Vogl Sáenz, Sarah Maclay, Michelle Mitchell-Foust and Tony Barnstone. He earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from theUniversity
of Granada (Spain )
and a Master´s in Literature from the University
of Zaragoza (Spain ). He conducts poetry
workshops and he currently teaches Spanish at Rio Hondo College (Whittier, CA).
PHOTO ALBUM: Village Poets Present Mariano Zaro
____________________________
---Mariano Zaro
As a fiction writer, his short stories have appeared in several literary journals in Spain and the United States: Menos 15, El signo del gorrión, Caracola, The Louisville Review, Poeticdiversity, The Baltimore Review, Pinyon, Magnapoets and The Portland Review. In 2004 he received the Roanoke Review Short Fiction Prize. He has translated American poets Philomene Long, Alicia Vogl Sáenz, Sarah Maclay, Michelle Mitchell-Foust and Tony Barnstone. He earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the
PHOTO ALBUM: Village Poets Present Mariano Zaro
____________________________
---Mariano Zaro
My father wraps plums
with newspapers.
I cut the pages in half.
He wraps the plums.
We are in the attic.
It’s summer.
We don’t talk.
He rolls the fruits,
his fingers twist both ends of the
paper.
It´s raining outside.
The plums look like wrapped candy.
He is meticulous, not too meticulous,
just enough.
The plums have to be without nicks or cuts,
firm,
not too ripe, unblemished.
The storms have been coming all
afternoon.
That´s why my father is home;
he couldn’t go to the fields.
His hands are so beautiful
I am almost afraid of them.
He ties the plums with a thin string,
like a necklace.
Five plums in each string, exactly five.
I don´t know why.
His hands inspect the fruit, twist the
paper,
tie the knots, do the math.
I hide my hands under the newspapers.
He is on a ladder now.
He hangs the strings from a wooden beam
in the ceiling.
I pass the strings to him.
One by one.
Sometimes, unintentionally,
my hand brushes his hand.
He leans his body against the ladder,
rests for a moment,
cleans his sweat.
My father is old.
The strings dangle from the ceiling.
Plums in-waiting like dull,
modest Christmas ornaments.
Fruit
for the winter,
he says.
As if you could wrap the summer with
newspapers.
As if you could wrap your father’s hands
for the future days of hunger.
