Bernal Cruz:
It was a quick and simple game
Perfect for this overactive school boy
the stakes were always high,
You could win one or a few marblesbut you always risked losing your own.
Through time, some became more valuable
Some are worth risking, some you never want to lose,
Some are gifts and some you just find around
but eventually they all become stories of their own.
Each reminds you of someone or that time you won
On the day I left Guatemala
The same day my schoolmates came to say farewell
I carried these on my lap —
an attempt to take my friends along
so as to never really have to say Good-bye
Thirty years later I keep them all intact
in a sock in my drawer in my heart
— R. Bernal Cruz-Muñoz
12/06/19