I am
- warrior, woman, flesh
- who swallows rigid afflictions
- my mother’s stout gaze
- the trenches of the Pico Duarte
I am
- instigator, observer, messenger
- close-lipped within strummed harmonies and flushed cheeks
- grains of mashed plantains between portly fingers
- coarse like the english words laden on my mother’s tongue
I am
- tainted lips of deceit
- idle in navigation
- clad in coarse oak
- wound taut by crude honking and cigarette breath
I am
- the nervous system constrained by lingering gazes
- the cut beneath strangled sighs
- the skepticism in my mother’s eyes when she closes the screen door
- hazed brown coalescing with broadened moonlight
I am
- the iron clutch on pepper spray
- thrashed among gilded thread
- my mother’s fervent prayers
- the synonymous implications between woman and fear