I say, Don't trust those men with better, bigger versions of love if they refuse the small, shabby sample they gave others the tribute of believing i… - Julia Alvarez

Mine was an oral culture, full of storytellers, but reading and writing were not encouraged. (No public libraries, no free press!) Coming to the United States suddenly thrust me into a world where I was an alien, where I spoke the language with an accent. This abrupt and painful “translation” led me to the company of books, the homeland of the imagination where all were welcomed. In trying to master my new language of English, I had to pay attention to words, their little reputations and atmospheres, their exact weights and balances, their smells and sounds and textures…

I'm watching a romantic play
in Plato's cave; half the time I don't
believe in it...
Other times I'm so addicted I'm one of the mainliners...
hallucinating that in truth a man's
body is one of the Absolute Forms.
I look around when the houselights come on
and see no one!

I tried to listen, take notes ...
...and stared out
on the New England meadow straight from Frost:
acres of grasses and flowers tossed by
a wind which whirled with the continual
roar of a thousand voices from Babel.