STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
RICARDO MORAN
The whimpering, the howling would not stop.
My grandfather had abandoned his faithful “O.”
When the foreman called for “Richard,”
my grandfather raised his hand
when Mexicans could not be Mexicans. When separate
theaters and separate swimming days
separated brown and white bodies.
When Ricardo became Richard,
he evaporated into the light-skin background
of little box homes, leaving “O” on the street
like a dog, to fend for itself, to die
in the desert cold,
beyond the manicured green lawns.
And now, years after “Richard” dissolved,
I’m told, “Play the game. Drop the O.
Leave it like your grandfather’s dog. It will learn to limp along.”
But I would rather burn
down a building with such a closet.
I stand outside and pick up my grandfather’s “O”
by the embers of his past,
malnourished and shivering, unable to speak.
Ricardo Moran’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Perceptions Magazine, Willa Cather Review, and in the Nebraska Writers Guild, San Diego Writers, Ink, and Wingless Dreamer anthologies. He has attended the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference, the Willa Cather Foundation Spring conference, and San Diego Writers, Ink workshops. Ricardo serves on the board at San Diego Writers Ink. Currently a copywriter, Ricardo is the former director of nonprofit education programs and appeared in television interviews for the American Red Cross. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling and learning how to say “good morning” in as many languages as possible.
