Who Has Need, I Stand with You

In this hour, let us grant to each other the grace that is ours
to give.
In each other, let us see ourselves, and ourselves again,

That all the times we have looked at our faces in a mirror
Should have added up — each face our own, but a reminder as well

We are more than ourselves, that our eyes can see
Into that silver world as far as, and beyond, what we understand.

Looking into a mirror, into a window pane, into the water of a lake,
A photograph — we are here and over there as well. In that moment

All things are more possible. In this hour of ourselves, you and I,
One stronger than the other, let us speak evenly, and make plain

The hope that all this time has held us. Let us extend ourselves
Beyond ourselves into the silver, ourselves bigger and farther,

Ten thousand bodies to choose from suddenly in that mirror, us
Needing only one, so that things seem again so simple.

Alberto Ríos is the author of ten books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. In August 2013, Rios was named Arizona’s first state poet laureate. His books of poems include, most recently, The Dangerous Shirt, preceded by The Theater of Night, winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, along with The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, a finalist for the National Book Award. His three collections of short stories are, most recently, The Curtain of Trees, along with Pig Cookies, and The Iguana Killer. Ríos is a Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University, where he has taught for over 30 years and where he holds the further distinction of Katharine C. Turner Endowed Chair in English.