Nobody prays in this building
but we all live full of grace.
Come in and sit down, in an evening like this
I took a cigarette from Maria’s lips.

Forgive that there is always bad weather in this window
and forgive this clock stopped at 8.15 Hiroshima time.

Forgive our thoughts
like bed sheets where a body fought the fever.

Forgive that we look like being better
when we are really just older.

Forgive that in a world like this
we became parents
and forgive if after the car bomb
I buy you a drink.

Now come with me to my old school,
I will lead you to a class without the cross that I took away,
in an evening like this
I wrote a phrase on the blackboard
that nobody erased because the soldiers arrived.

 

This is the first prize winner of Cha's "Encountering" Poetry Contest. Read a description of the poem by José Manuel Sevilla here.