Juan Mobili

Dignified

The body glowing inside the clothes

—William Stafford

I was young then, and troubled with being young

standing at a corner, waiting impatiently

for the light to turn as green as an emerald

at the widest avenue in the world, when I saw them

holding each other’s hands, elated as if they were

waiting for Saint Peter to welcome them to Heaven.

The father wore a suit so often worn, it shone

brightly under the sun of Buenos Aires,

the mother, accustomed to long waits in

our native Purgatory, seemed calm gazing

at the sidewalk at the end of the long crossing,

and their daughter was breathless, staring at

a vast avenue in a city that bequeathed them so little.

Each of them proudly wearing their Sunday’s best,

dignified— their eyes glowing like a candle

behind the sole window of a modest rural church—

next to the young man I was, brooding to appear

profound and serious. I remember the man shone

like a bashful sun, his wife turning patience

into a necessary art, and that little girl greeting

her first epiphany, that opportunities would not

come by easily, feeling the ember of her power.

Juan Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. His poems appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Hanging Loose Magazine, Louisville Review, and The Worcester Review, among others, as well as publications in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. He’s a recipient of multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, and an Honorable Mention from the International Human Rights Art Festival. His chapbook Contraband was published in 2022, and in January of 2025 he was appointed Poet Laureate of Rockland County, New York.