The Presser | Carlos Reyes

He squats blowing life
into coals of the ubiquitous
shallow bowl to heat
his fifty year old iron.

He pushes his table cart
from block to block where
he is expected like a friend
by those who need him
to press their shirts and pants.

He is unreflective, modest,
smiles benignly if you greet
him, doesn’t need to advertise
his presence with chatter,

doesn’t decorate the
instrument of his livelihood
for Ayudha Puja–– he leaves that
to the man passing, leading
the tawdry decorated cow.

Carlos Reyes lives in Portland, Oregon. He is a traveler and whether he journeys to Alaska, Ecuador, France, India, Ireland. Panama, or Spain, those travels inform his poetry. In September, 2015 he was a fellow at Camac Centre d’Arte in Marnay, France. Latest publications: Pomegranate, Sister of the Heart (2012), Poemas de amor y locura / Poems of Love and Madness (2013). His first prose book, The Keys to The Cottage; Stories from The West of Ireland, was published in 2015. Guilt in Our Pockets was published in 2017; Poems from South India.