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Somerville resident Juan Casillas Alvarez is a poet, essayist and educator born in Puerto Rico. Alvarez completed his undergraduate degree in literature and history at the University of Puerto Rico and his MA at the University of Connecticut. His first book of poetry, Lugar Profano, was published in 2015 by Isla Negra. He has been a featured poet for many literary conferences and festivals throughout the United States. His poetry and political essays have been published in various literary journals and newspapers. He has been a teacher in the public schools of Chelsea and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Love ballad to the Charles River

Juan Casillas Alvarez

It all started with your sharp body
As if you were a tree –lined path
Caressing
The sand and the flow of the waist
And the row of stamens
Lead us to the soft shore
Once again, in her saddle, the concave moon
Pierces your lubricating springs.
To reach you, one crosses the bridge
That swells your belly with pleasure
And night of confessions
Everything started with you
On your bed you were waiting for us
You were waiting
In the furious time
Of unpredictable candor
That why any one can love you
Because the silence of your clay
Is a delight.
Because your unknown steps
In the besieged city.
Is a delight.
When your waters move, turbulent
Defeat the anxiety of a the springtime heart.
And when the more they swell, the stronger
In the summer the taste of your lips
And your cool shore how  it penetrated
The soul in love
Hidden in the bushes
And your brown perfume
Accompany me to kiss her
In very manly victory
It all star with you my captain
You have not the immensity of the Amazon river
But you have the little things
From of my island’s litter river
Look for her because she has escaped
Between the heaven and earth
And give her my oars and my compass
Because
The woman gets involved with us
When she discovers the fluid of your stream.

— Juan Casillas Alvarez

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