the half open window,
I can crawl back into the Everything Room
sneak into my sofa-room and pull
my playa blankets over me.
Then, maybe if I sleep long enough
I can start over
when I wake up.
Bet Mamá is smoothing my pillows like always
and straightening out my blankets.
She always arranges my pencils, or sometimes
I catch her holding up one of my
old school class photos,
from Longfellow.
Close
my eyes. Bite my lips.
Mandas
are for
losers.
Stretch my leg, almost
to the window, uh . . .
Yo’ Moondragin!
With your tongue-a-saggin’.
Whass your problem, you
playin’ like a monkey on a cage?
Your friend from Kuwhat couldn’t hang
with you, had to go back
to her terrorist mama, huh!
The razor burns-burns, I turn,
jerk my head down
lose my grip and slip,
slide down the ladder and
jump, roll and slam into a bag of burned sticks.
Cicatríz spins and Marietta grabs her
by the head. Comes
to me—
Marietta swishes above me
slows and snickers,
You shrimpy-bubble-brain-
buck-toothed-flat-chested loser!
She saunters
past Zako
eating a slice of
drippy pizza.
Do it! Zako shouts slurry crazy,
his tongue sticky and his eyes gone.
Do it to her!
Marietta kicks me
in the face, slow
kicks
and so fast
my right eye pops something,
hot water gushes out
of my head and squirts
in my hands.
Marietta stands over me, with her shoe
on my neck. Brings Cicatríz up to her nose.
Now tell me little dirty doggy,
tell Marietta about this skanky ho’ messin’ with Zako!
She keeps a hold on Cicatríz,
runs with the guys, throws Cicatríz to Zako,
runs toward Tompkins Square Park,
laughing out loud
as if the world was a piece of black dirt
under your shoes and you could shake-shake it
until it fell apart.
Heh-heh, s’ok, Cicatríz,
Just hold on, I say and push
back the swollen ball over my right eye.
Just wait, Cicatríz. We’re gonna get ’em.
See Marietta? She’s laying down next to you
on the grass, takin’ a toke from Zako’s hand
thinking I can’t see her.
As soon as I catch up, heh,
I don’t care
if they’re waiting for me, RGB, Lil’ Weez,
the other guys inside
their stupid puffed jackets.
Stumble and walk, come on, get up!
Stumble again,
I get up again,
scraped and bleeding
hot rosy glue down
one side of my face
sniff-sniff, smells like Christmas
I get up, limp-limp,
comin’ to get you, girl, heh-heh,
sniff-sniff, So, so
ready.
10/9/01 Tuesday, Tompkins Square Park, midnight sharp, Loisaida
down
One foot
ahead of the other,
make sure I keep
moving forward, heh,
okeh-okeh,
just remember, Canela,
when you step up
past the gate,
Marietta is going to jump you,
it doesn’t matter, cuz
this time, it’s just you
there’s no one else now
just you, heh-heh
I can barely see,
the park looks like
a gray bubble moon with wiry
owls draped across a shadowy crater,
some are trapped upside down
in the branches kinda like bats, oh
my head is pounding
splinters, or is it my eye,
I can barely
see, heh, Cicatríz,
is that you?
Give me back Cicatríz!
I say, a long high voice flies out of my face—
Give her back to me!
Who’s that? Who? I can’t hear youuu,
Zako says in the gray light leaning on the gray tree trunk.
A slice of skin peels by my eyebrow
over my eye.
She’s
all
I
have . . .
I say standing dragging my backpack with one hand
rubbing off blood paste from my mouth
with the other.
Marietta comes up to me,
her sad painted face sharp bent downward
her mouth twitching, her nose runny, You got nothin’,
you got nobody,
YolandahMoondraggin’.
Yolandamondragón!
Yolandamondragón!
I say it so fast
my fist shoots out wavy
with my words all together like lightning
so far I can see Marietta’s face change
into someone old scared frozen.
Then
gray
smoke
no
sound
as
I fall.
She’s out, dude. Zako says laughing barking.
I can’t move. So tired, my head crackin’
my face burnin’, my eye dying, but
I can still see shapes.
She didn’t even touch me, she’s blind as the weasel.
Marietta laughs out. Let’s get outta here!
She says, licks a scratch on her arm
and they float out of the park,
Zako throws Cicatríz on the ground.
Get off me, you worm!
Coughs and follows after the group, leans
alone toward the half flames of headlights and
mixed-up sounds of morning noise.
I am laying on the grass, to one side.
A rough breeze splits the hair
on my forehead in half.
Cicatríz! Come
here, girl . . .
I thought,
I thought,
I could save all the voices,
uncle DJ.
But I couldn’t. Just couldn’t. I am so sorry,
uncle DJ. All I have is what’s inside
my backpack. Nothin’ but
dust.
The razor in my throat slices up to my face
and my right eye. Wipe
the bloody stuff from my face.
Why did you have to go and deliver roses!
Why? Why did you have to go and deliver
roses. When the Towers
were about to
go
10/9/01 Tuesday, Tompkins Square Park, almost 12:30, Loisaida
adios
Rise up
tumble back on the hard dirt.
Fallback, roll down inside
and cry, alone
by the fence. My face kissing the ground—
Why, uncle DJ?
Adios.
Don’t say
adios. A thick airy voice
ruffles above me.
Don’t say adios yet, Yolanda María.
Pat-pats a handkerchief over my eye.
Wipes my mouth, pat-pats my eye again
and my swollen cheek.
Kisses me nervous and lifts me.
I’ve been running like Fe
lix Trinidad looking for you.
I heard things outside she tells me.
Mamá stops
suddenly.
Vámonos, she says. Throws the boa
over her shoulder, smoothes Cicatríz’s head
and slides her into my backpack.
I hear a little sniff. Sniff.
Mamá lifts me,
almost carries me.
We take the voices now? She asks.
What voices? There’s no voices.
The ones you’ve been carrying
in your backpackah, she says.
How did you know?
I overheard you and Rezzy talking
at Sister Lopez’s. I am sorry. So many people
come to her. They want to talk to the espíritus
of their loved ones. I was hiding
in one of the dressing rooms.
I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never known
what to say all my life . . .
maybe the voices need to rest, Canelita,
you’ve carried them a long way.
Mamá and I open the baggies of dust.
One by one, we pour them on the grass,
in a circle around a broken tree, thirsty and bitten.
A tiny feather, a shredded breath
bluish and bright
it spins up and turns above me,
falls to me. I follow its flight
over the busted fence. There it is.
Alone, without a wing, or a body,
incomplete and yet, still alive.
10/10/01 Wednesday, Loisaida, the Everything Room, a little later
this is the beginning I wanted
Before I open the door
coming home,
Mamá slides off the boa, says
I need to tell you a secreto, Yolanda María.
You are tired and hurt, I know.
Your eye, it looks so—Mamá stops
and backs off. Leans against the wall, sobs.
What secret? Mamá?
You know, when I found you this morning
and you prayed out loud for your uncle
and you said adios, adios, adios
over and over again? I wanted to stop you
and tell you that . . .
Uncle DJ?
I wanted to stop, nena
and tell you that—he’s home.
Canelita!
A thin but husky voice pulls me into
the Everything Room. Uncle DJ?
I don’t know how. Mamá says.
It was you, I think. It was all of us, filling
up our heart with hope and canciones
and velas in the room and even merengues
in the hospital, it was all that. It was
you, Canelita. It was . . .
Uncle DJ?
Sí, corazón. Where you been?
¡Oye, fíjate! You look as bad as me!
How do you like this bed? Folds like a pretzel,
remote control and everything. The mayor
said it’s on the house, cheverote, eh?
Canelita, come here, you look
like a little wet mouse suckin’ a purple
lollipop through your eye.
Uncle DJ?
I open my arms as if falling
into the deep. Down, down,
so far down I cannot see.
But it is me, I know it’s me
hugging uncle DJ.
Last thing I remember, he says,
was packing flower bouquets into the basket
on my delivery bicycle at Rosie’s Roses, like
a second ago with years in between.
Feel like I was in a Puertorican Purgatory!
Uncle DJ laughs a little, then grabs
tía Gladys’s hand and water runs down his eyes.
He lets out a long fluttery breath and
kisses-kisses Tía’s hand.
Mamá Mercedes sits
at the foot of her brother’s bed.
Touches her heart with her skinny brown hand
as if finally finding it like a lost, torn rose,
a shaky petal that folds everything
back into place.
Tío Beto, I say.
I missed you—so much.
I’ve been reading your letters
over and over and—
Wait, Mamá! My letters,
my cereal box?
I think you left them at Tompkins
No, you, uh, left them at—
It’s all right, chill, says uncle DJ.
Letters? Who needs letters,
when we got each other.
Uncle DJ takes my hand.
Falls
asleep in minutes.
I sit
for a while next to uncle DJ.
Rest my head against the wall.
I notice the IV tubes and the steely chrome
bounce golden
light across the room.
I notice papi Reinaldo sitting on the sofa
clutching his hands together, then
rubbing his face,
maybe he’s like me,
he can’t believe we are all here again.
Notice
my mother going over uncle DJ’s
daily chart of instructions and meds,
she moves like a girl,
with songs and poems
in her little shoulder bones. My legs move
like Mamá’s, then I sit by Papi and rest
my head on his shoulder, smells of smoke
and sad air, wind and salt.
I walk up
to the kitchen window
float there—
the sun is still under the avenues, and the
boiling oceans, everything is darkness.
With my hand
over my eye, peek over my city in stacks of black
see my face lit by Mamá’s candlelight—
who is she, who was she,
where is she, where was she?
Half of
the face is older,
one eyebrow arches up
asking stuff that cannot be answered,
the puffy lips are curled, with a little smile,
her skin is soft and gauzy,
scratched autumn leaf
and cut, blue
with a rosy reddish meadow
by the forehead, her neck is long
her cheeks are angular,
glowing, still
a little dusty. Now
her lips open almost
about to speak,
it is something inside her
that I notice.
It lights up in places, fiery.
It is a whirlwind,
sparkles wilder—
flies out with a trembling
as if saying
something to life
and blood and dust,
tears and things spinning without
a heart, torn to pieces forever,
crying voices
that never die
and return to our hands, as if
saying it all without one word and
then—
I look at my familia,
before going back to my sofa bed
cradling Cicatríz.
Uncle DJ
wakes up, startled,
smiles, gazes past me,
almost through me.
Hums a little song
as if making up my future.
Gaze at my familia
with soft eyes,
with my eyes made of little rivers, green,
rushing from deep inside, from holy, kind
waters deep-blue-green-green,
where mambos and boleros are born
and girl guitars weep
and burst into islands of fire—
this
is the
beginning I wanted,
Sky.
Cinnamon Words
Abuelito: Grandfather
Aguinaldos: Traditional Christmas songs and music
Amor con pastelitos: Love with little banana leaf tamales
Ando esbaratao’: I am messed up, falling apart
Apretao’: Tight
Arroz: Rice
Asopao’: Spicy stew
Bacalaitos: Little fried fish morsels
Bacalao’: Dry fish fried
Batey: Patio
¡Bendito!: Holy! Can you believe it?
Bien chévere: Real cool
Bodega: Store
Botica: Drugstore
Buchipluma: A gossip
Cafecito: Little cup of coffee
Caldero: Frying pan
Chéverechévere: Coolcool, great
Chulisnaquis: Beautiful
Cicatríz: Scar
Coctails de camarón: Shrimp cocktails
El cambio: Change of life, menopause
El desarollo: Puberty
Güagüancos: Upbeat Afro-Caribbean drum rhythms
Güapa: Real cute girl
Güapo: Handsome boy
Guayabita: Term of endearment; little guayaba fruit
Habichuelas: Kidney beans
Islita: Little Island, Puerto Rico
Jevos: Tough dudes; “heavies”
La vida es un sueño: From “Life Is a Dream,” a famous poem by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681)
La vida no es un güame: Life ain’t peachy, it isn’t easy
Lágrimas: Tears
Leche: Milk
Lechón: Roast pork
Loisaida: Lower East Side
Lonche: Lunch
¡Madre Santisima!: Holy Mother of God!
Manguita: Term of endearment; little mango
Me salían granos de antojo en los labios: I used to get pimples of desire on my lips
Melao’: Sugar; sweet substance of sugarcane
Mi Canelita: My little cinnamon stick
Nada: Nothing
Ñaquiti-ñaquiti: Yakkkity yak, talk-talk
Nena: Darling; term of endearment
Noba Yor: New York
Nosedonde: Idon’tknowwhere
Oye, fíjate: Listen, can you believe it?
Palma: Palm leaf
Pantalones: Pants
Paquetero: Schemer, liar
Parranda: House-to-house pilgrimage of Christmas songs
Pasteles: Puerto Rican tamales wrapped in banana leaf
Pellizcos: Pinches
Pescao’ frito: Fried fish
Pirulí: Hard candy umbrella-shaped lollipop
Plátanos: Bananas
Pollo frito con habichuelas: Fried chicken with beans
Pueltorras: Puerto Rican women
Puras malas amistades: Just bad friends
Puro bochinche: All gossip and tomfoolery
Puro tumbao’: A drum groove; soulful
¿Que te pasa, muchacha?: What’s the matter with you, girl?
Quiensabedonde: Whoknowswhere
Ruda: Medicinal rue plant
Sóbame con alcohol: Rub me with alcohol
Sofrito: Fried mix of onions, garlic and cilantro
Té de yerba buena: Spearmint tea
Cinnamon Girl Page 7
