POEM SHARE: El Florida Room

El Florida Room

Not a study or a den, but El Florida 
as my mother called it, a pretty name
for the room with the prettiest view 
of the lipstick-red hibiscus puckered up
against the windows, the tepid breeze 
laden with the brown-sugar scent 
of loquats drifting in from the yard.

Not a sunroom, but where the sun 
both rose and set, all day the shadows 
of banana trees fan-dancing across
the floor, and if it rained, it rained
the loudest, like marbles plunking 
across the roof under constant threat 
of coconuts ready to fall from the sky.

Not a sitting room, but El Florida where 
I sat alone for hours with butterflies
frozen on the polyester curtains
and faces of Lladró figurines: sad angels,
clowns, and princesses with eyes glazed 
blue and gray, gazing from behind
the glass doors of the wall cabinet.

Not a TV room, but where I watched
Creature Feature as a boy, clinging 
to my brother, safe from vampires
in the same sofa where I fell in love 
with Clint Eastwood and my Abuelo 
watching westerns, or pitying women
crying in telenovelas with my Abuela.

Not a family room, but the room where
my father twirled his hair while listening
to 8-tracks of Elvis, and read Nietzsche 
and Kant a few months before he died, 
where my mother learned to dance alone
as she swept, and I learned Salsa pressed 
against my Tía Julia’s enormous breasts.

At the edge of the city, in the company 
of crickets, beside the empty clothesline, 
telephone wires and the moon, tonight
my life is an old friend sitting with me  
not in the living room, but in the light
of El Florida, as quiet and necessary 
as any star shining above it.

—Richard Blanco