Academically trained in German language and literature at Colby (BA), Tufts (MA), and Harvard (ABD), Maria Luisa Arroyo is an educator, a single parent, a 2004 Massachusetts Cultural Council poetry grant recipient, a 2008 Massachusetts Unsung Heroine, a visual artist, and a self-taught poet. Her collections of poems include Gathering Words/Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press, Tempe, AZ: June 2008).  The poem below…