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Jonathan Moya Mar 2020
How can I call myself a Boricua when I
barely know the Spanish for earth and sky,    
have no roots in the soil of Moroves,
no sense of San Juan’s flavors,
the warm Atlantic blowing Arecibo  beach,    
Ponce dancing in the Caribbean’s laughter—  
all memories stolen from postcards hastily
bought at the airport along with a  
tin of Florecitas by my mother returning home.

Those little flowers exploded suns on my tongue
and created colors, formed postcard dreams  
of forts, conquistadors, Taino villages burning
in flames rather than submitting to Spain’s sway.
I craved to be an archeologist reverently
dusting off the bones of my ancestors.
I wanted to be an artist, like my uncle Bob,
splashing faceless heads among yellow flares
devoid of black, red, no tint of sad back story.
I settled for being a poet, a painter of words,
a discoverer of the history of hopes.

There is a memory of the Rambler hitting a cow
on the dirt mountain road leading to Moroves.
The bovine sliding down the embankment,
nonchalantly getting up and going his way.
The Rambler’s front end forever stuck with the
impression of an angry bull welded in the grill.
Another of a drive to a carnival, sitting
in the cab of another station wagon,
stargazing the white half moons rising
from under the red halter of my cousin Anna.
A final one of my grandmother praying
the rosary while I stumbled to the outhouse,
spending the night on the swing under the porch
because I didn’t want to break her silence.

Cows, moons, prayers are my Boricua heritage.
I can’t translate the decimas of a jibaro song,
nor dance a merengue, a bomba,  plena.
I have no desire to eat sugarcane from the  stalk,
nor split the soursop for it sweetness.
I am lost in the winds every Boricua knows.
My memories are blown away in the hurricane.
I seek the solace of the first flight out
after the storm, sad knowing  that
I was not born, like every Boricua,  
from the roots up, to study the light of stars.
Dr Monkey Jr Jan 2012
Que lenguaje mas hermoso
el que produce palabras de alegria
como es el te amo, te quiero y te adoro.

Dicen que los latinos somos ruidosos,
llenos de energia y poca cordura,
pero es que no entienden que el español
no tiene limites, no tiene volumen, solo frescura.

Grita tus palabras indigenas,
huracan, coqui, fotuto, Boricua,
esas palabras tainas tan bellas
que usamos cada dia.

Porque tienes miedo cuando te sale el "Spanglish"
si los gringos no pueden pronunciar ni "Porto Wico"
asi que curate con un  "bad english"
porque nunca tendras que procuparte por decir RRRRico como un chino.

Mi lenguaje no puede morir
porque dentro de sus palabras
estan las llamas de un Neruda,
la negrura de un Llorens,
la fortaleza de un Albizu.

Oh cuanto te amo, te quiero, te adoro Puerto Rico
por enseñarme el español que uso para enamorar a tus hermosas mujeres.
Oh cuanto te amo, te quiero, te adoro Puerto Rico
por eseñarme el español que uso para luchar contra los que ya no te quieren.
Flores amarillas
Con un flan de coco,
Una botella de ron boricua
Y la taza de cafe cubano.
Las palmas tropicales
Por arriba sobre todo.
Te lo digo ahora,
Va ser una noche muy buena.

No te vayas temprano.
Si te vas,
Olvídate del chocolate.
Tenemos mucho para darte,
Pero eres tu que le hace falta
Llevar.

Entonces,
Siéntate en la playa
Y con nosotros pasaras el rato.
Cálmate por esta noche,
Que las que vienen van hacer
Del carajo.
For the love of god, don't google translate this.
Martin Narrod Oct 2016
Hello morning, I have anticipated you since
I awoke to the small barking dog's tailored speak for food.

I want that Eddie should start preparing her own meals. I know that while I smoke this morning's cigarette, that French Bulldog inside contemplates the fifty dollar bag of high-grade kibble she has pushed me to buy her or instead enjoying her own ****. And all of my wives friends call her a lady.

I want to ride alone in our FJ Cruiser through Yellowstone at dawn, before the predators have gone to bed and the tourists make their queues, I want to beat morning until I have found the wolves, and the sun rise mocks me as I sit four hours in traffic for a cup of coffee as I round the shivering peaks of our Rocky Mountain backyard landscape, and the Tetons swell with last nights snow-fall and the warm autumn air sends plumes of frigid mist above the valley floor and into the skies above Jackson.

And I wish I could stand once more on the balcony of the 777 building and smoke the finest sativas with my friend Turtle while our significant others drink coffees and watch reruns of American Gladiators on a $14,000 couch waiting for us to come back inside.

I wish I could wait on the benches outside baggage claim at San Francisco International Airport smoking inside the white lines, waiting for a girl in a red sports car to pick me up and my friend Guy's absurd faces there to greet me amidst the fog and the out of place palm trees Inevwr expected to see so far North.

And it would be great to hear my grandfather play the ukulele once more while I excitedly fished off of my grandparents dock somewhere in New Jersey where my mother's accent insists she grew up. And my grandfather sings horrifically demeaning songs written in 1924 that offer little respect to women, but much adventure to young men.

I want to play tag with the neighborhood children again in the Summer of 1995. Even though I had come to find all of those playing tag had absconded to a game entitled The 'A' Game, which its only rules were to exclude me from joining. I want to throw scalding hot water once more into Simon Berman's face. Though I do not wish for him to block the water with a basketball and turn my face into Jack Nicholson's Joker.

In Chicago as an eighteen year old, I could count the chalk outlines of bodies as I drove down Fullerton Avenue through the Logan Square neighborhood. I wish I could remember those sounds the boricua made. I wish I could forget the burning runs I received from Lazo's burritos at some time 'o clock in the morning.

I've never been one for finding edible late-night eats. I only want the memory of being able to do so. I do wish that my wife's ex-best friend's boyfriend realizes that he's less the great Emeril of his kitchen and more or less is just an unemployed sous chef with a laundry list of felonies, rather than a wish list of awful entrees. At least in that memory, he's neither a chef nor my wife's ex-friend's boyfriend and instead he's just another hideous orcish ****** ringing the doorbells in some suburb of Seattle, announcing to each and every one of his neighbors that he's obligated to notify the community of his ****** offenses.

I just wish I was there to witness his humiliation, and enjoy the total collapse of ego amidst the long list of those decent people he has surely offended.

Perhaps in some future life I can enjoy watching as jungle rot solves my hatred, disposing of his evilness in small skin ***** of flesh that dot the sidewalk while his disease evolves.

I want more vegan eating options across the food desert we call America. I want to arrive home one evening and find my wife ancy to share a new study that American Journal of Medixibe has found on the benefits of providing non-reciprocated ******* to your partners. And I want to be the first to enjoy the benefits of such a study, that I'm encouraged by her to publish my findings while I attend a prestigious university I once wasn't allowed to attend because of my religious background.

I want to live in a world where violence is no longer a viable solution to resolving the in differences we as humans confuse each other trying to make sense of between ourselves.

I want to visit our local grocery store and find that my favorite $8 a pint vegan ice cream has been marked down to a more reasonable number and that there is still an abundance of flavors left for me to choose from.

I don't wish for much: to not have people ask me to speak louder, full-frontal ****** in made for television movies, and a decent blonde IPA for under $10 in glass bottles. Where in this world can a poet go and still receive the respect that was once given by the royal monarchy of The British Empire.

Now it seems those with the fine knowledge of words are cast into a class with less regard than street-drifters and the homeless.

When did our world lose major respect for the artisans of fine art, or the ability to render an opus?

28-integer news memos and 15-second clips of our cute dog eating its own **** attract more attention than a fine explanation of the human condition or the sultry and sophisticated sounds of my Argentinian friend Anna recite Garcia Lorca in her native Spanish tongue.

I just want to be gone before there is a consequence for finding joy in the human condition, and honesty and integrity are known as the recividism that takes down our nation.

We were once the leaders of a great country. We were compelled by our history to create and indoctrinate one another to achieve, conceive, and amend ourselves to thrive amidst the uncertainty of a mischievous and disgraceful society. Now I just wish to be in bed with my wife when this storm of stupidity comes. I wish I never had to be on the receiving end of a sermon set forth by business leaders instead of political achievers.

I want Eddie to make herself some breakfast so I can lay here in bed a few more moments. I want pancakes and fresh fruit juice for breakfast, a quiet room and a hard-covered notebook. I want to believe a great pen and a good friend could lead me through the exciting and anxiety-writhing times in this life, but I to know too sadly that we live in a world where we don't view it as a weakness as those around us may not be able to read or may not be able to write.
ConnectHook Sep 2015
No me diga – la nena ‘ta pregnant again?
(I thought she decided no more after Tito…)
she’s almost 16 – and she dropped out of school.
(It might be the spice in abuela’s sofrito…)

There’s one in the oven and two in the stroller
Oh nubile Boricua, what gives – ¿Qué sería?
if life is the masa and birth is the bakery
yours is a virtual panadería

Some pulse in your short-shorts, those flexible hips
under tropical rhythm of lewd reggaeton
seems to summon the ***** from your lover’s abundance
whenever you find yourselves home and alone.

Where’s your man? Who’s the daddy? Why didn’t he stay?
your gaze is unsettling, harshly pathetic.
You sad Betty-Boop: are you waiting in vain
for your man – or your period?  How unpoetic…

This life lived on welfare, entitled, enslaved
with your babies at grandma’s and you with your phone
is a taxpayer’s nightmare and teenage recurrence
(but you’re busy texting some drama unknown…)

Mamita herself looks more like your hermana
She started this game even earlier, too
When you stand, side by side, in your thongs and pijama
it’s hard to be sure who is who.
ConnectHook Apr 2018
Qui Transtulit Sustinet

There sat CONNECTICUT, a twit
blue nanny-state, and doomed to sit
on welfare-warrens of the ******
her social service on demand.
She withers on NEW ENGLAND‘s vine
a bygone has-been, and a sign
of democratic overkill
where her once-dear and verdant rill
now stagnant flows: polluted stream
a moribund New England dream.
The richest state with poorest heart:
the Northeast’s saddest story. Part
of history’s renowned revival,
now irrelevant. Survival
chains her children in dependence
keeping back the state’s ascendance.
Apostate Puritan, grown old—
for LIBERTY, no longer bold;
a slave to Man, where once God’s WORD
awakened greatness. Souls were stirred
in ENFIELD (of all strange places),
Christ beheld in radiant faces . . .
Edwards held their spellbound souls
like spiders over flaming coals,
in gratitude for Gospel grace
renewing thus both town and race.
But I digress. Connecticut
is what I came to speak about:
forgotten dull colonial matron
yoked in failure, plebe as patron
nostalgic for her Charter Oak
whose deadwood limbs went up in smoke
along with dark tobacco wrap
while the plantation took a nap.
Her social programs overgrowth
pose forest fire-risk. Under oath
her public servants signal virtue;
sign which really should alert you
to the democrat-machine’s
impending failure (ways and means).
Nutmeg-addled Tax-and-spenders,
dollar drunks on welfare benders
widen economic rifts;
force single moms toward double shifts
while Latin Kings hold court in prison
waiting out their royal season:
fiscally unsustainable—
yet totally explainable
(nutmeg is a drug for witches
spendthrift warlocks, bankrupt *******).
Oh HARTFORD, city of the dead
which dies at five, then home to bed,
insurance once assured your rise;
but now your ghosts haunt sadder skies.
Your life displaced, outsourced, out-dated;
so, it seems, your fall was fated.
Meanwhile, close to New York City,
fairer fields are growing pretty
long on corporate commutes.
Data-driven growth computes
as data-drivers flood the roads
and enter by Manhattan-loads
from golden coasts’ Atlantic shores
and posh patrician golden doors
to bite the apple of our time:
a number-cruncher built on crime.
New England’s puritannic granny
(data-driven tyrant ******)
seeks to harbor tropic isles
with blandly bureaucratic smiles.
Your poor dear heart cannot afford
to welcome every island lord
who looks to better his estate
and so decides to emigrate.
Displaced Jamaicans outta yard
compel the soft verse to get hard.
Boricua separatists, dispersed
show nationalities reversed
and dwell between two foreign lands
in Spanglish no one understands.
Such nutmeg gets the covens high
to soar the stormy Liberal sky.
It’s Yankee hubris: condescension
taxing plebes for such dissension.
Though you connect, there I would cut,
excising from New England’s gut
metastasizing social tumors:
clueless and obese consumers,
teenage moms, pajama-clad
whose nenes wait in vain for dad.
QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET—truth . . .
but that was was in our nation’s youth.
She’s gotten worse with passing years
confirming citizens’ worst fears;
showing her colors every vote
her monotone, a droning note
on which the blue-bloods hang their hue
when hope and change are overdue.
Her atheist zeal meets Yankee pride:
a most progressive broomstick ride;
oblivious to her Christian past,
an enemy of God at last.
Senryu and Haikai:
Basho-san, can you get me
another beer, please?
Hebert Logerie Nov 2024
¡Oh! No, nunca deberían hablar de Puerto Rico
Borinquén, Porto Rico de una manera tan malvada
Puerto Rico nada en el mar Caribe y el Océano Atlántico
Con otras bellas islas como Cuba, Haití y Jamaica
Puerto Rico es un hermoso archipiélago caribeño
Con altas montañas. ¡Oh! Sí, maravilloso Puerto Rico
Tiene un cielo azul y blanco perfecto, bosques tropicales
Playas de agua cristalina, y es una de las mejores
Puerto Rico nunca puede ser 'una isla flotante de basura'
Es hermosa con mucho potencial. En esta época
Algunos payasos o comediantes locos deben tener muchos nervios
Para insultar a una Boricua tan dulce con una población amistosa
Iré a Puerto Rico pronto a buscar a mi bella Santa
Mi Alma, mi Reina. Voy a convertirme en artista para pintar
La sonrisa de esta isla paradisíaca. Borinquén querida, mi amor
Javier Solís tiene razón. Eres la tierra de los sueños, mi amor
Nadie puede empañar tu imagen. Te visitaré pronto
Con lindos sueños en mi corazón y con una cuchara de plata
Para poder disfrutar de tu cocina y empaparme de tu cóctel tropical
Mientras me sumerjo en los ojos de mi deslumbrante y **** ángel
Nuestro Puerto Rico es una isla mitológica para soñadores
Nuestro Puerto Rico es un archipiélago tropical para enamorados.

PD Traducción de ‘ Our Puerto Rico’ en español.

Copyright © Noviembre 2024, Hébert Logerie, Todos los derechos reservados.
Hébert Logerie es autor de numerosos poemarios.
Puerto Rico is not '' a floating island of garbage'.
Hebert Logerie Nov 2024
Oh ! Non, ils ne devraient jamais parler de Porto Rico
Borinquén, Porto Rico de façon aussi diabolique
Porto Rico nage dans la mer des Caraïbes
Avec d'autres îles comme Cuba, Haïti et la Jamaïque
Puerto Rico est un magnifique archipel des Caraïbes
Avec de hautes montagnes. Oh ! Oui, la belle Porto Rico
A un ciel bleu et blanc parfait, des forêts tropicales de bonheur
Des plages d'eau cristalline, et elle est l'une des meilleures
Porto Rico ne peut jamais être « une île flottante de déchets »
Elle est superbe avec beaucoup de potentiel. De nos jours
Certains clowns ou comédiens fous doivent avoir beaucoup de nerfs
Pour insulter une Boricua aussi douce avec un peuple plein d’amour
J’irai bientôt à Porto Rico à la recherche de ma belle Sainte
De mon Âme, de ma reine. Je deviendrai un artiste pour peindre
Le sourire de cette île paradisiaque. Borinquén chérie, mon amour
Javier Solís a raison. Tu es le pays des rêves, mon amour
Personne ne peut ternir ton image. Je viendrai te rendre visite bientôt
Avec de beaux rêves dans mon cœur et avec une cuillère en argent
Pour que je puisse savourer ta cuisine et siroter ton cocktail tropical
En plongeant très fond dans les yeux de ta fleur si **** et belle
Notre Porto Rico est une île mythologique pour les rêveurs
Notre Porto Rico est un archipel tropical pour les amoureux.

Copyright © Novembre 2024, Hébert Logerie, Tous droits réservés.
Hébert Logerie est l'auteur de nombreux recueils de poésie.
Translation in French of ' Our Puerto Rico'.
Jonathan Moya Jul 2024
My mother was always a better singer
                                than she was a cook.

She may have burnt a lot of things but
                              never missed a note,
         especially when Harry Belafonte
came on the transistor kitchen radio-
a voice so pure it made her cry with joy.

“There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza,
                                                     dear Liza,”
                         he sang echoing her past,
                                                 the divorce,
                         her humbling present life.

The duet had the reply she wanted to say
to everything and sing it like Odetta--
                             “Well fix it, dear Henry
                                                 dear Henry,
                                                          fix it.”

It was her kitchen cooking song and
           and we would sing it together
            when Harry wasn’t on the air.

We sang it so often,
                                  switching voices.
                                      that I believed
                         she could fix anything
                                     and I could too.    

When we got to the fortieth line
                the meatloaf was burnt
                                              on top.

I ate it all with a lot of ketchup.
She just cut off the burnt part
                and fed it to the dog.

My sister,
                             two brothers
                              and stepdad
                             ate it quietly,
                        building up a lot
                                         of bad
                 meatloaf memories.

All the other kids had
                          their own songs
                that she sang to them
                                but she sang
                                               only
                         Belafonte to me.  

“Daylight come and me wan' go home,”
                    she sang to me in a whisper
                   before kissing me goodnight.

Calypso more than Salsa echoed
                            her Boricua pride,
                 the youngest of thirteen,
            yet never born to the island.

“Midnight come  and she wan’ go home,”
I sang to her open casket 22 years later,
                              kissing her on the head,
                      taking the hole in the bucket,
                                     along with Belafonte
                                                   to the future.
Hebert Logerie Nov 2024
Oh! No, they should never talk about Borinquén
Puerto Rico, Porto Rico in such an evil fashion
PR swims in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea
With other exquisite islands like Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti
Puerto Rico is a gorgeous Caribbean Archipelago
With high mountains. Oh! Yes, wonderful Puerto Rico
Has perfect blue and white sky, tropical rainforests
Crystal clear water beaches, and she’s one of the best
Puerto Rico can never be ‘a floating island of garbage’
She’s lovely with a lot of potential. In this day and age
Some crazy clowns or comedians must have a lot of nerves
To insult such a sweet Boricua with friendly peoples
I’ll be going to Puerto Rico soon to search for my stunning Saint
My Santa, my Queen. I’m going to become an artist to paint
The smile of this paradise island. Borinquén dear, my love
Javier Solis is right. You are the land of dreams, my love
No one can tarnish your unique image. I will visit you soon
With lovely dreams in my heart and with a silver spoon
So I can enjoy your cuisine and seep up your tropical cocktail
While diving deep into the eyes of my dazzling and **** angel
Our Puerto Rico is a mythological Island for dreamers
Our Puerto Rico is a tropical Archipelago for lovers.

Copyright © November 2024, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of numerous collections of poetry.
This poem is my response to this crazy comedian.
mari Mar 2020
we are the champion kids,
mean starry-eyed gangster babies,
fresh from the trailer park;
soaking up diamanté danger
in glittering pink sequin bikinis
and rhinestone cowboy hats.
sunset swinging boricua gold hips,
robbers dripping virginal deceit as
'nilla ice cream coats fruit punch lips,
sighing softly under neon moonlight
as we stumble through camelot,
drunk off the fumes of the city.

hollywood heavenly stars light up
our flesh and the fake palm trees
at the 76, a true downriver delight.
degenerate beauty queens beaten blue
by cinema kings craving insanity
and perfection in sweet cocaina lines,
selling our souls to weekly devils
for a big shot of treasure trove ***.

chain-smoking cigarettes because he
called me his pretty little gangster baby;
lazily watching him fly through traffic,
i love his rollercoaster disco mind.
falling in and falling out of the world,
floating across the sparkling nebulae
as he waves his pistol and blue paper
in my face, hoping i'll awaken from
dope saturated celluloid dreams.
praying my baby will come back to me
from the crackhouse down the street;
she smiles to the world, but i can see
the tear stains on her golden cheeks.
wyoming street with the disco queens
hillbilly jim and dizzy rascal singing sweet
this trailer trash land is paradise to me
Jonathan Moya Jul 2024
My grandmother was my oracle,
speaking stained insights in a Spanish
I hardly understood at the time.  

My offerings were small but true:
kisses, hugs, “I love you” on paper scraps
translated by my mother for her knowing.

It was as if I had written them in blood and
it became a forever tattoo of her heart,  
a pumping cross, always giving and forgiving.

The yield was quarters, dimes, pennies
doled out from a repurposed wide-mouth
banderilla jar for the corner candy store tour.

She lived in a temple of rust seeping down walls, paint cracks, peeling checkerboard linoleum,
chipped ceramics, relics broken and glued back-

an unsanctified housing of brittle bones and
striations of hands and feet, sweet blood,
passed from thirteenth child to second son.

As my Spanish improved I was able to praise
the oracle with all the many spoken and
scribbled ways of Latin gratitude and adoration

under the watchful eye of my mother and
the care of twelve others who still lived
within the realm of her unwritten wisdom.  

When her vision stopped and her blood
no longer flowed she was relocated with
all solemnity to rest under a Boricua tree.

My mother doled out her oracular inheritance
whenever I stumbled, wandered, questioned,
encouraging me to write it all down.

Now, she is mere dust in the echoing wind
and I am a childless prophet who appreciates
all the oracles that came before my time.
Jonathan Moya Nov 2020
In the early morning rise,
my mother and I
take a ride
to the hospital
where I was born
and she has her
dialysis treatments.
Her feet,
wrinkled and bruised,
exhausted
are raised
on a leather pedestal.

They remind me
of Grandma’s
heavy black nylons
that pooled around
her ankles
as she prayed
the rosary at night
in the gentle sway
of her rocking chair,
praying through the days
and all the
joyful,
luminous,
sorrowful,
glorious mysteries,
the standing
required for raising
thirteen children
on platefuls
of morning quesitos,
revoltillos,
bowls of crema
and loaves
of pan de aqua,
three hours
of washing, ironing
and folding their vestidos,
the lunches of
mofongo, and pasteles,
the dinners of
asopao de gandules,
the culling of coins
from a big crystal bowl
to buy dulces
at Carmen’s bodega
just down the block
on Fulton and Seventh.

My mother only had four children,
three boys and a girl,
and just like abuela,
she nourished
them the same way—
standing long and hard
until her feet gave out
and her blood wore down,
in the days before
the seams of myself
unraveled in black threads
and dispersed in tears
to every corner.

In the dreams
for the reality
that never occurred
I would
massage her feet,
put the richest nard
generously on them
like the chastised Mary
did for Jesus,
bandage them in flesh.

The little memories
are unremembered
to the world
except for
the faithful sons
and daughters
who recall only
the clinking of
thirty shiny silver pieces
placed silently
into their open palms,
betraying the reality
with the buffing of memory
into better hopes and dreams,
a poetry
of bruised feet,
blood,
the scent
of good Boricua cuisine,
the silent
watching  
mother
asleep.
Jonathan Moya May 22
Desire Lines

I have wandered every concrete, tarmac, grass, and dirt path near my house. And yet my dog Hurricane, or just plain Cane, knows their way better than I do. He knows when the scent of the trail must yield right, left, or straight ahead. When the desire lines must lead forward to greater passions or the stench of fear should force doubling back.  

Today, Cane is all forward momentum, following the flattened grass past the eroded foot trails, beyond the perfect registration of deer, into the warrens, stopping only in hesitation at the barely-there print of a broad plantigrade walker, its edges pressed into the damp grass, its weight undeniable.  

He knows it as only something bigger than himself. I think that maybe it's a bear, or even worse, something just as patient, just as watching.  

Cane’s nostrils flare. His fur lifts along his spine. Then, he shifts. His body contracts. He pulls inward, ready to turn. And he does turn, but not toward me. His head swivels sharply to the side. His ears cut the air, his body still taut.  

Something is there. Here. Watching.  

I see a figure slip through the brush—low, lean, measured in its movements. A coyote. Its fur is a patchwork of dust and hunger. There is a white, ripped-open kitchen bag in its mouth. Chicken bones and spoiled lettuce leak onto the ground. It stops shy of the clearing, its unblinking eyes fixed on us.  

Cane doesn’t growl. He doesn’t lunge. He knows the difference—how a thing that stalks is different from one that runs.  

But Cane trembles now. His muscles twitch under his fur, breath shallow, a guttural whine slipping through his teeth.  

The coyote tilts its head—slow, deliberate, testing. Then, a shift—a barely perceptible adjustment in weight, its haunches lowering just enough to suggest it is considering the space between us, measuring distance, gauging intent. Its jaw tightens, a subtle flex of muscle beneath the dirt-matted fur, the faintest parting of its lips as if preparing to speak in the only way it knows how.  

I remember my brother, the angler, advising me on what to do in coyote encounters. Hazing, he called it.  

With my free hand, I take my Boricua pride cap off my head and start waving its black shading-to-gray mesh above me. I tug Cane’s leash with my bound hand, forcing him behind me.  

The coyote stiffens but does not yield.  

I shout the most primal, profane thing I can recall in the Spanish I knew before English took over my thoughts.  

“Puta de madre, déjame an mí y a mi perro en paz. Vuelve al agujero infernal de donde viniste.”  

The coyote doesn’t move.  

I stomp at it. I lunge forward, kicking dirt, grass, and twigs into its face. Cane whimpers, tensing further, his weight pressing into my leg like he wants to fold into me, disappear into safer ground.  

Still nothing.  

I pray for a miracle, reciting the prayer my mother taught me for moments of helplessness.  

"God, my Defender, I come to You in fear and helplessness..."  

I pray beyond all the desire lines I knew. Praying to above, to everything, to anyone that can hear and save me.  
Then, the earth quakes beneath us.  

It starts as a distant but insistent hum, building into a growl that swallows the silence. The ground shivers beneath my boots. Then Cane flinches, ears flattening, legs coiled to flee.  

The sound comes first—the grinding roar, the violent protest of metal against stone. Then the scent—gasoline thick in the air, choking the breath from my lungs, mixing with the raw pungency of turned soil. Dust rises, catching in my throat, coating my skin in the residue of a world undone.  

Or renewed?  

The bulldozer bursts through the treeline with no hesitation, no regard for the delicate fractures of the earth beneath its treads. The clearing shifts before my eyes—grass swallowed, warrens collapsed, footprints erased in the wake of industry’s advance. The soft, worn trails Cane and I followed, flattened under the rhythm of our footsteps, are lost beneath metal weight.  

It grinds forward relentlessly, its blade shoving uprooted grass into twisted piles, its treads pressing deeper with each pass, embedding their mark where instinct once did. The scent of earth is overtaken now—by the acrid sting of oil, by heat radiating off steel, by the mechanical certainty that does not pause to consider what was here before.  

The coyote hesitates—just for a breath, just long enough to judge this new threat—then vanishes, a ghost swallowed into the shadows of the trees.  

Cane bolts first, his body snapping into motion, sprinting back down the path we came. I stand there longer than I should, staring at what remains.  

Desire lines—paths shaped by instinct, longing, and familiarity. Each marks an unspoken decision, a pull toward something known or unknown.  

And now, buried.  

The bulldozer moves forward, carving a permanence we cannot undo.  

Cane pauses just ahead, glancing back over his shoulder, his eyes dark and unsure. He does not whine. He does not wait for me. He simply watches—just for a breath—then turns away, retreating with more certainty than I can muster.  

I know I should follow. The path to safety is clear. But for a moment, my feet are heavy, pressed into the dirt like I might leave my own mark here, some proof that I existed before the machines came.  

Then, finally, I turn back, tracing Cane’s desire lines to safety—the ones that lead not toward curiosity but away from ruin.
Jonathan Moya May 25
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.
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— The End —