Nothing famous ever came out of Cuatro de Julio,

The street that always interrupted the sleep

Of its inhabitants, including my grandmother’s,

Who had to listen through the bawling sorrow

Of drunkards, the scampering of the police,

All of us under their mercy: our inheritance.
Largely debt and unhappiness, our inheritance

Was not visible to those living outside Cuatro de Julio—

If it were, other people, especially the police,

Would have been more forgiving, allowing our sleep,

Our silence and our poverty. Exposed to sorrow

Like salt, we swallowed our tears, like grandmother.
Setting up a house by the street, my grandmother

Soldiered through a husbandless life, her inheritance

From God. No one was a witness to this sorrow

Except her five children and Cuatro de Julio

Which, in its early years, was conducive for sleep.

They would be meddlesome decades later, the police.
Once, on my way to public school, I saw the police

Chase my cousins for drug pushing. My grandmother

Never intervened. Soap operas and afternoon sleep

Were her chosen companion, her inheritance.

For living so long in a street called Cuatro de Julio

She should have been spared from this kind of sorrow.
Sometimes, like shabu or cough syrup, sorrow

Could be addictive. Even the steadfast among the police

Are honeycombed by it. Patrolling Cuatro de Julio,

What wild sadness were they storing? My grandmother

Could teach them a thing about this native inheritance

So instead of beating their wives, they could sleep.
In a riot or in the stoning of our house, I feigned sleep.

There’s a limit to a boy’s body in containing sorrow;

Feverish, I once wept complainingly over this inheritance.

They were busy searching another’s house, the police

But I knew she heard me loud and clear, my grandmother.

In shame, I would write my address as Fourth of July.
Grandmother, forgive me for forsaking my inheritance.

I may have left Cuatro de Julio but not its sorrow.

The police have one less thing to worry about now. Sleep.