All evening in between
‘How was your day’ and
Mouths full of dragon roll
We tried to decide
Where they were from.

Those handsome boys were so
Well dressed and speaking
Bits of Spanish from a country
You could not place.

While you eavesdropped my
Double ‘r’ was trapped by
Unfamiliar lips burning
From the bite of wasabi and
Frustration.

But from you,
In between stolen Spanish
And butchered seaweed,
I heard
Echoes of homesick

When you tell me
About hot nights broken
By persistent little frogs
And of cool blue cobblestones
Older than democracy

You tell me about
Crowded salsa bars
Under decades of graffiti –
Grotto light exposing the
Permanence of passing verse

I hear stories of little hands picking
Grasses for camels
Should they find themselves
Hungry and full of gifts –
In the Caribbean.

Tastes are deeper,
You say
My mouth trying to imagine
Mofongo and tostones,
Sancocho stews cooking
While banana leaves get pounded
Under the summer skies.

People dance on your island –
All over, but
Especially in the mountains and
The sleepy barrios
With one bar
Many chickens
And no doctor –
Islands unto themselves
Trembling with hurricaned blood
And poverty.

They hardly bother with shoes or
The politics of Big Brother,
While laying down dominoes and
Lives to burden,
They don’t speak his language.

Here, you are a half-breed
With memories of mangoes peppered
By the rapping of timbales and the sighing
Of waters clear as your devotion.

Here you are always cold –
You are a scientist,
Adrift.

But on an island
That still whispers African prayers
With its European tongue,
You become the philosopher –
Your feet move to uncertainties
But in your blood courses
The permanent tidal lessons
Of Latino desire.

Here,
Now
You give up –
Asking the handsome boys
“¿De donde son ustedes?”

In your native language
They tell you about Central America –
In an instant
You drop your disguise
And your tongues enjoy
Their freedom.

“She’s a gringa,” you say,
Exposing me with your thumb.

I feel familiar guilt and shuffle my feet
While the handsome boys look
At your small
Puerto Rican frame –
They laugh,
“But, so are you!”