Nosotras

Te odio                      completamente           y cada mañana me acerco a ti
         ¿A quién veré?                                  Will I see the woman I am,
o el hombre que nunca fui?      What molecule will catch my attention?
                      What flaw will atomize me?

I am a woman           are words that cannot undress my heart
             it ticks away ready to explode                   through inhumane nights
of doubt y fantasmas at the fire escape y news headlines of
                                           ¡mira este jodio maricón! ¡golpealo!
                                           ¡enséñale a ser un hombre! ¡mas duro!
                                                                             ¡enséñale!
           then silence

Tu eres mi cuerpo      with every roll of fat       reeds of body hair
           every blemish            bitten lips          with thick thighs
with curly hair                      with la pena en medio de nuestas piernas

          en realidad                te amo pero odio       la posibilidad
de nosotras       found mangled underneath beds or in trash bins
          or our heads                  split open like spider chrysanthemums
                                                                  or moth orchids
          or worse          becoming lost in a line of annotation
                                on another statistical chart at the end
                                                                        of each year

I am a woman                 are words I hold like newborns I can never have
                     breathe with them                    breathe them
breathe                               breathe                         breathe until the torch
        ignites               & the masses riot for a universal dignity
                  y un Amor radical                     against the fears
                                                                that fracture
                                                                          all of us


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Self-portrait on the Borderline Between Puerto Rico and the United States

           I remember trying to find love in an airport souvenir shop
among t-shirts with political variants of que bonita bandera
y zemís emptied of their gods o the taino icons for sun o turtle o
bird o coqui o the eternal lovers all gone o dying in cycled decades
of decay from storms bleeding from the lashed backs of slaves o those
tiny boxing glove you hang precariously from your rear-view mirror
that will never be worn o swing the air of the chemical aromas of
processed dulce de coco blanco o ajonjoli o papaya o pasta de guayba
o mampostial o batata or even the absence of sound from the tambor
you hang from your key chain                                All the flags here
are windless              All I want to do is bring something back
           So I find my body on the baggage carousel at JFK & not even I
                               want to claim her and her guts pickled in barcardi
& her lungs full of mango seeds & throat sprouting a pana tree
as ancient as my grandparents birth certificates & hair made from
dry palmetto leaves & a face carved directly from the cliff wall
            of Isabela, Puerto Rico
                                  So I leave it behind to return to the machinations
of Uber floods on the BQE & the rising colossi of condominiums reigning
the hours        as salsa o bachata o trap can be heard rattling under
flesh sidewalks           & people people people walking aimless       sowing gears
o motherboards o used car batteries in every unpolluted patch of soil

                      Everywhere is smoke, as am I, and I catch myself smoking
at the windowsill with all the other dejected abuelitas waiting
                               for the coffee to boil over or the world to end


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Night, for Elie Che
after Aracelis Girmay

          Elie Che, April 10th, 1997 - 2020,
did not die                at the ripe age
            of thirty-five
but was swept by Atebey's waves,
           at twenty-three,
will be embraced by Yemaya,
                      on August 31st,
who kept the early pearl of her life
                      and made her infinite, too soon,
while Elie likely thought about next month's rent
or how much the next procedure would be
or what next grief or elation to process
            as her body changes into herself,
& is right now
                     submerged
in happenings yesterday, what happened tomorrow,
                     what will happen now
under & above the night
          your face joins
the faces of
                      Alexa y Dustin Parker y Yampi Arocho y Monika Diamond
y Lexi y Johanna Metzger y Serena Ramos y Layla Sanchez y Penelope Ramirez, y
Nina Pop, Y Helle Jae y Tony McDade y Rem'mie Fells y Riah Milton y Jayne Thompson
y Selena Reyes-Hernandez y Brian Powers y Brayla Stone y Merci Mack y Shaki Peters
y Bree Black y Summer Taylor y Marilyn Cazarez y Dior H Ova y Queasha Hardy y
Aja Rhone-Spears, y all the nameless this year has claimed & will claim
          & Elie you own the night in all its waveform cartilage and dream-space light
                    you own the night knowing thyself
& you are still becoming                           you are still becoming