I ask my mother why we left Puerto Rico and she says…

you don’t remember this / but my mother taught me / the story

about Atabey / she squat like a frog / birthed twins / left them

to fend for themselves / they ate yuca

and from their excrement / came the hibiscus / our flower

blood red / like the memory of loss / or to be exact / the undying

of a / radiant plentitude

so why not ask me / who cried / the day we left / because i can

only teach you / how to make your shadow small / when the sun

is ablaze / how to make yourself / a girasol / hungry for more

____________________

Ashes

— for Pedro Albizu Campos

I love the tenacity of a sky

that knows no end, host

to devilish kites and

lost temples; how it flouts

the sea, its salt a foil

to my wounds; I love, too

when hystory

absolves the righteous,

like legs that can

bear my weight,

or else say my name

in every tongue, except the

sovereign’s; for love is not

quiet, is not the stone that

becomes a cell, or a ballot

that drowns the moon; it is

the taramind tree, a walk

under its shade, its

unpretentious beauty &

proverbial wisdom

— the sweet sorrow, the

door that is a door,
the ashes that smolder.

___________________

Grito

— for Ramón Emeterio Betances

If only I were

quiet

like a sunset

emptied

of sunset

a soul

that longs

for

pageantry

&

thorn

crowns

— so docile

& heedless

quiet,

like a tame sky.

Oh, to be

that sky!