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Searching for Florecitas at the Supermercado

We walk, my brother and I, as the cool breath of night yields to the slow, sticky press of morning. Condado’s half-lit streets shimmer under retreating shadows, sidewalks smoothed by wealth, indifferent to our steps. Beach condos glow in the thinning dark, their balconies high as forgetting.  

Somewhere in this maze of Boricua pride of  polished storefronts, there is a supermercado. Somewhere beyond joggers in designer gear, behind terracotta houses older than the neighborhood’s ambition, is the candy our mother carried home. “florecitas”, sugar and memory pressed into a flowered shell.  

The hotel server had given simple directions—“izquierda, derecha, izquierda—left, right, left—and it would be there, waiting at the end of the street.” But in the air between us, the words blurred, my mind twisting Spanish into English. Derecha became left, izquierda became right, and the city rearranged itself under our misplaced steps.  

We moved forward, confident in error, passing high-fashion joggers and dogs bred for display. Past palm-lined streets, the world opened—not a supermercado, but the sea, stretching, oblivious.  

Tourist hotels framed us, their whitewashed facades reflecting the blank stares of wanderers who, like us, had no answers. We backtracked. Again, the city folded into the quiet wealth of Condado’s homes—white brick walls, gated walks—another dead end, another seawall holding back the morning tide.  

For a moment, we stood there, the heat thick now, pressing against us like the city was unwilling to yield. The ocean stretched wide, indifferent, erasing footprints before they could last. Condado did not welcome hesitation.  There was movement, commerce, and precision—but none for us.

I closed my eyes, searching for something in the lull between breath and heat. A memory surfaced—Morovis, my grandmother’s porch, the way the mountain mist rolled in at dusk, cooling the air before settling into silence, the scent of damp earth and slow conversation.

There, I would listen, swaying in my sun-faded hammock below, to my abuela chanting the rosary long after all her children had gone to sleep.  She was chanting in that squeaky rocker passed on to her like the house from her mother.  The rhythm was effortless as if she had always known how to move with the wind. In that place, Spanish was not a test, not an obstacle—it wrapped around me like something familiar, something inherited.  

But here, the air did not soften. The city did not cradle me like the mountains and old houses once had. The ocean did not care about misplaced words or lost directions.

We went back to the hotel, back to the start.

And there—was a man, his clothes worn by years, hair tangled in the wind, smoking a cigarette with the ease of someone who had lived too long to hurry. I asked for directions; my Spanish was frayed by childhood limits. He gestured—hands folding left, right, left—and I finally saw it. My mistake, my misplaced certainty.  

Knowing the way, even speaking the words correctly, didn’t make Condado mine. It never would.  

I let out a breath, the weight of it pressing into the thick, unmoving heat. The city had rearranged me, twisted the language in my mouth, and turned me inside out. Not by mistake—but by design.

Our walk deepens into the residential core of Condado, where the white brick houses stand uniform and impenetrable, their gates casting long shadows as the morning sun asserts itself. The sidewalks shrink with every block, narrowing from comfortable passage to tight corridors until finally, they are no more than thin strips of concrete—a gangplank hovering beside the street.  

We adjust our steps to fit the space, shoulders brushing against walls that do not give, the rough texture of aging plaster catching against my shirt. A gate swings open beside us, forcing me to step sideways. I press briefly against the wrought iron frame before slipping past, the cool metal leaving an imprint I can still feel as we continue forward.  

Here, the rhythm is different. The residents move alone, drifting toward the beach or peeling off toward the hotel district’s sleek restaurants. The streets bear Spanish names familiar yet distant, their syllables rolling off my tongue with a quiet recognition. They feel like names I should know deeply, but they sit on the edge of memory, just beyond reach.  

When we reach the supermercado, it is not the supermarket we see first—it is the high-rise tower looming above the parking lot, twenty stories of alternating terracotta hues, shifting from brown at its base to a soft gold at its peak. It is the only splash of color in this enclave, the only building that resists Condado’s strict homogeneity.  It stands like an Aztec temple without layers, the jutting balconies forming a jagged silhouette against the sky. It feels at odds with its surroundings yet completely absorbed into them, a contradiction standing quietly in place.

Then there is the supermercado itself, a sprawling gray box whose presence is neither defiant nor inviting but simply inevitable. There is no sign of charm, no gesture toward the past, just a square of necessity, unmoved by its location.  

We enter through the community side, the entrance facing away from the four-lane highway and its cold symmetry of traffic signals, away from the city's flow. This side of the supermarket is quieter and more resigned. The glass doors slide open, spilling out a rush of cool air, stopping our breath for a beat before we step through. The chill clings to our skin, but the heat lingers in our clothes, a presence that does not easily leave.  

Inside, the silence follows—a muffled quiet that absorbs the outside world, swallowing the hum of the street, the weight of the sun, the narrowing paths that brought us here.  

For a brief moment, I hesitate. The cold air presses against my skin, a sharp contrast to the warmth still clinging to my clothes. A shiver runs through me—not from the temperature, but from the sudden shift, the feeling of having stepped into something weightless and sterile.  Overhead, fluorescent lights buzz in a steady, electric rhythm, filling the space with a sound too mechanical to belong to anyone.  

Somewhere beyond the produce section, I hear Spanish murmuring between aisles—soft, familiar—but distant, threading through the air like something overheard rather than shared. A voice rises for a moment, just long enough to catch the shape of a phrase my mother used to say before it fades again into the hum of the supermarket.

I almost turn and reach it—but then it’s gone, swallowed by the fluorescent hum, leaving nothing behind. My fingers tighten around the edge of the shopping basket, the plastic pressing into my palm, grounding me in a place that still does not quite fit.

The supermarket is big and clean— almost too familiar, reminiscent of the Publix back home. Yet, despite the bright, polished aisles, there’s an odd sense of displacement. The products look the same, but the Spanish labels create just enough distance to remind me I’m somewhere else, somewhere I don’t quite belong.  

We wander the aisles. I scan the packaging, piecing together meaning as best I can— able to read more than I can speak or understand. My brother moves with ease, picking up local versions of pork rinds, sugar cookies, a guava drink.

The florecitas aren’t where I expect them to be, lost beyond my certainty. I ask a young woman who is stocking the produce aisle. She tilts her head, confused, then shrugs. She’s never heard of them. Maybe they go by another name.
She calls someone over her store intercom, her voice rising into the blank air of fluorescent light. A response crackles through—the florecitas are in aisle seven.

We head there, weaving through more aisles, past displays of packaged comforts and near-familiarities. When I finally find them, they sit low on the shelf, their orange tins big enough to see yet easy enough to overlook. I lift one, rattling it gently, hoping for a scent—but nothing escapes. Still solid in my hands, their presence here is proof: they exist beyond memory.  

For a moment, I debated taking two tins, wondering if they might be seized on the cruise ship the next day. But they should be safe if they are unopened and in their original packaging. Still, my luggage wouldn’t hold two, and the thought of losing them before I could eat them on the open water kept me from taking the risk.  

At the checkout, I pick up pastries for my wife. Guava is a safe choice, something familiar amidst the rows of unknown fruit fillings, flavors popular here but nowhere in my personal history.  

My brother says he wants to treat us, pulling out his ATM card—his Social Security disability account, which I oversee as his representative payee. The cashier, a short, older woman with the quiet authority of someone who has worked here her whole life, scans the items efficiently, without pause.  

I punch in the PIN—numbers for Richard Petty and Jeff Gordon, my brother’s favorite racers. Declined. I tried again, but this time, his birthday was declined.
  
The cashier exhales, mimicking how to slide the card through the reader. The line behind us grows restless, shifting in collective impatience. I asked if I could switch to credit, but I can’t back out of the transaction.  

My brother watches, unbothered, chewing the edge of his thumbnail, waiting for me to solve the problem like I always do. I take out my special Amex—a business card with upper-level privileges—but the cashier isn’t impressed. The line thickens, voices rising slightly in volume, a growing murmur of frustration, disinterest, and waiting.  

I swipe. It goes through like it always does.
  
The tension dissolves as the receipt prints, the final proof of purchase—a transaction completed, a process endured, a place navigated but never truly entered.  

We step outside, my brother carrying the bag. The streets are more familiar now, and the walk back is half as long. I want nothing more than to return to the hotel, hand my wife the pastries, and wash away the grime and quiet shame in the shower. To rest, let exhaustion overtake frustration, and turn my focus forward—toward the cruise, toward the day at sea where I could eat the florecitas without hesitation, without misplaced expectation.  

As we move through the streets, Condado feels smaller. Not because I understand it better but because I no longer need to.
---
Shadow Sep 2023
Reality is an illusion
That shelters from the unknown
But the walls easily dissolve
You just must accept the idea
You might never return
Nat Sep 2021
I don't want to die
A ghost is an echo
I want to be the opposite
Shout through me

Can I leave my eyes here?
To see but not be seen?
I dream of dispersal
A trillion motes of
Every place there's ever been
Everywhere at once

No walls to see through
No body, no mind, no stride
Transcendence of senses
To fade into the blue
To know every side
To know and nothing else
Tom Waiting Aug 2020
To Destroy, First Build  (The Construction of Human Dissolution)



steely Ironies begin as the end nears, leather torn by fabric,
when humans begin the separation protocol, when first
we intend to dissolve, we need construct, *****., barriers

so true, good fences make good neighbors...no. great enemies.
the invisible ones, freight train tracks running down the middle
of the bed, new lands of “his side, her side,” shut your light off!

he makes a joke, she don’t turn her head, maybe she, offers instead
a secret grimace, thinking inside too little late, bothering/thinking
go write your breakup poetry, that’ll keep you truly invested and

ocupado, lock door’d, why is my toothbrush in a moving van, that I didn’t hire, no destination home, notes passed via refrigerator door, what was  that “have children chatter?” months+words recent, huh?

just months ago, not confused, don’t touch his diet drink! man-o-man,
thank god we didn’t do a vaca drive up the West Coast, hanging with relatives in SF, LA not your town, you hate tinsel and pretense. BS.

arguing when we need to add gas, a wonderful double entendre, when was the end of detente, we abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, another place we won’t ever get to go-gether,
that just makes me sadly happier, and

I think; now I understand why he always booked us seats on airplanes separated  by the aisle, no head upon his shoulder, in my lap, holding hands needs disinfectant, social distancing solves many problems now,

need now, no asking how, to conceive destroy, imagine concrete:

first you must build, it’s how one does it, human dissolution requires work, malice aforethought, we both master builders, see yeah,  that’s a joke, a good one too...let’s laugh not together at us, our edifice crumbles
Kate Oct 2019
This is the ending
your vows foreshadowed
you sung out
'til our story is told'
and here I am
writing the final chapter

The storms stop today
coven
give me solace
as I burst open
like a dark spell

Your last embrace
burrowed deep into my shoulder
you were trying to find ground
I looked to the ceiling
begged it to crack open
to rain down dust upon us
celestial beings to steal me away from this
horrifying outcome

From this
opening

I need a waiata
I need a war cry
I need to summon a god
across the water
Rama Krsna Jul 2019
inside this black hole
where no light trespasses
his linga alone does,
smoothly into the event horizon
marking a point of no return

even sand clocks
at this gateway to heaven
tick slower
as gravitational time dilation
takes over

upon entry
no escape routes
or parachutes
exist for exit

only a free fall
into singularity
where space-time curvature
becomes infinite

odds of mere mortals
surviving this plummet
are nine billion to one

any volunteers?

© 2019
Rose Jan 2019
If you ever think that I’m talking too much
You should just -
Bold faced, just kiss me
And make me shut up.
Be sure to make it seem that it’s -
That it’s just because you love me,
Me when I speak..
And not that you think
I’m talking too much
H Jul 2018
I thought I knew you

Your green eyes and how they may wander
The touch of your thick, ashy hands
Your determined heart, may it not go asunder
The strength of our tight wedding bands

I thought I knew you

The heart in your chest with the strength of a lion
The mileage and baggage of the grief you've traveled
The look in your eye when I know that you're lyin',
The realization that all that we've built has unraveled

I thought I knew you

The idea that you could betray me for another
And I thought we would fight 'till the end
Yet I knew that you'd go and find a new lover
And our love now I cannot amend
This doodling Yankee (boot noah dandy)
doth newt lack chutzpah,
tries to finagle Fitbit fitting figurative footwear,
that ideally Fitzhugh
like custom made glove snugly,
terrifically, unequivocally matching,
thence handily solving Finger hut issue,
when or if arctic blasts cold
doggedly enveloped Gaea,
whence  humans analogously held hostage
linkedin among fellow Earthlings freezing,
frost bitten, gangrenous hominids
scurrying haphazardly searching vainly
from shelter ring sky (with mother's little helper)
each primate scrambling

(as unrepentant, recalcitrant outlier)
once (what seems millenniums ago) livingsocial
jackknifed habitat fractured,
essentially damning Crispr bungled ambition
grist for raconteur spewing sought aide
telling tales amidst the mill by  Ponderosa Pine
drawing a crowd of curious onlookers,
who forewent idling away time structured existence,
thus, nary a clock watcher weathering whims
as mother nature doth channel
capriciously, felicitously,

and indubitably stripped away
bow ring pastime asper watching paint dry
now tis each man, woman and child to
(seeketh dale and hill) to duff fend themselves
whereat mortality will steal immoral majority linkedin
encapsulated, housed, kindled
within luxurious faux existence
capitalistic dreams engendered existence fleeced
devoid of featherbed,

indeed mollycoddled memories
yanked wherein current rank and file
endowing superlative creature comforts
reduce wretched survivors
scant band of bare naked ladies
beastie boys, foo fighters espying counting crows
ready to buzzfeed toe kin **** sapiens

bereft, expunged, faux invincibility kickstarting
learning basic survival skills
forced to rescind twenty first century trappings
shifting paradigm sans primacy
pitting dishabille helpless imps against pearl jam killers
who do not shrink from ethically principled,

but give full reign to selfish callous deleterious foibles,
gruesome harmful indiscretions
sprouting with mushroom rhizome rapidity
ousting the  omnipresently
(well nigh since time immemorial
virtues cultivated, futilely integrated, lending oomph
residentially, scientifically tendering ubiquitous DNA
foisting gabled, heralded, instilled,

justified kneaded love thy neighbor motto
lyft ting in one fell swoop delicately
embroidered, finely graven, heavenly ideals
no more patent leather shoes reflecting up
nor doodling Yankee staking claim to fame
via feathered cap made of macaroni
thus such jingoistic, holistic,
fabric ripped retroactively
ramping atavistic simian base,
thus leveling the playing field.
Estranged in summer rains'

       landscaped  dissolution

       evincing season's discontent

      neath sun's suffocating alienation;

used to rhyme with warmth

             and effulgent delectation,

   emotional realms fizzled in a

              heated  halfhearted sizzle

            of down-pour's restless manifestations
Blame it on the rain...
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