I AM HERE WAITING FOR YOU TO RETURN MY BODY TO ME DON’T YOU KNOW YOU STILL OWE ME MY LIFE
BY RENEE MORALES
Mango trees how the rain can be heard dripping onto the flower soon it will be her time to burst. If the corners are fraying let’s imagine she was 15. Grammy moved from Santiago to a bigger city in 19—let’s imagine the white thing is supposed to be a dress. Say she was a dancer. What if baptism is a private practice making love in public what if you press the shutter long enough will it eventually go automatic. In reality I am in someone’s kitchen getting my hair braided. Grammy is a ballroom dancer using a comb to spell my name what if she’s holding a hot iron does that constitute as hitting. Say she was never a dancer. In the picture her shirt is really yellow what if the thing in her hand moves somewhat like a gun. If I say I too am a dancer struck with a hypothesis will the plaits always end in knockers. Say there is a dog and it is nibbling at my ankle. The dress was once collared and if you held it tight enough the seams blew apart like palm leaves. What will happen if you hold it up to the light. Say she was a dancer with a body that could not move. If Grammy sung to me and I was wearing motonetas does that mean I am in love with La Lupe. What if I say I am here waiting for you to return my body to me don’t you know you still owe me my life will that do something to fix it. Say knowing how to swim is genetic. I had a dream once I was on her lap playing a puzzle someone in the room was wearing a dress and my mother was probably whistling. Snapping is a thing learned fast but never easy so maybe I don’t have love I am it. Say she’s a dancer but is not great at leaping. The good thing about pictures is they are quiet how they never speak so you can’t say sorry if no one knows how. She once told me dancing is the only way to make custard. I like how golpe sounds in her mouth it’s all wet like guppy like drinking sugar tea limeade with all the pulp. Say a part of me is always lying. The smell of sweet rice is something like a picture and Grammy’s face is already halfway out of frame. Say twirling is how one gets rid of all the bones. Say the dress was a broach a small pin say she wore it on her way to work. The beautiful thing about shadows is how they don’t ask questions so when you fold your fingers outside your bedroom window you will watch how she forgets your name. Say Grammy was 56. If she does not answer pretend she is in a dress and it is yellow and everyone in the room is a good dancer. Say she is praying and her right hand is holding your elbow. [I am here waiting for you to return… you still owe me my life] Say the emptiness is a rhetorical question. If I say she is wearing a blue coat in the picture would anything actually change.
Sea Came Bearing Her Hip @ Night But Yemaya He Meant To Be My Husband
BY RENEE MORALES
[…] I start,
listening to La Gozadera barefoot
on asphalt. I’m amorph,
I brick or sometimes fig-newton I generalize
all my dreams and Note Mango¹, Humor²,
Facebook⁴, my Primitive Body⁵
made primitive at her
prime inside/within/comprised
of our amerikka. Deep
breath: might I
legend in the way a black man
skips rope beside daughters, confusing
mountains for metal
bars or the Cuban peso, how
I re-locate/generate/position
into the body
of a black man and his blue
jeans to witness I must “ponte
pa la tuyo”. English Migrant Reader,
my eject lies within the dark
negative space made vaginal
against red north american landscape.
I can’t resist against brushstrokes, I am
not interesting because I have not
the time, looking for ways
to translate what I really mean what
I really mean is I don’t ask permission
to be perverse. Here, my sliced breast against
question mark (.), my conunudrum
as follows: I stand outside a room
littered with wooden hammers clam
shells and my semicolon learning to read
and always use the wrong weapons. For we
who have achieved everything, prick
tobacco leaf churn goat
butter fry eggs with your sharpest
tooth and let it heal
our burning body. How WE, inscribed
here inside a select history of brownness is
pleas, is ggGGodgod, may my white lover
palm/provoke/per-
sist this erotic rosebud body bled disturbed and
reach his knuckle curve deep inside
darker parts, feel worms and salt
and throbbing earth honied may he
accumulate and accentuate
all my anticipatedly smeared ideas. Eclectic
irony is admitting my Spanish
mistake. I start
by listening
to La Gozadera barefoot on asphalt.
Love, place your pinkest
hand on my chest again and ask me
“what tribes³” as you finger my pinker
orchid, so I may reveal myself
again as I close my eyes searching
in the inventory of me or my mother’s
mother’s mother’s breast meat of narrative
and distance—
her ooooooooowww DUDUDU tudu
DUDUDU tudu DUDU dooo
BADAPABADAPABADAPAAHHHHHHH—
fabricating your answer.
