Cinnamon Girl by Juan Felipe Herrera

Author:Juan Felipe Herrera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

The night sky squirms

neon cobras

blue-fire snakes, pink

dragons on

old women faces

flamey makeup

look at

their narrow

wasp

waists

like

sucking

on a tube

of mustard, sad-eyed

girls flap

their hair

hot lipstick gloss

and candy hairspray

sticks to the air

they scream

they sing

the dahk-dahk of darts

and a thousand ant people

down below

bubble in circles around me

but it

is only

me

and Zako

up way up

in a painted metal cage

crazy cars and faces

crashing

in space.

Been on the Zyklone before?

Zako asks me. It’s like a giant hungry

dumb lizard. Wish it would come rolling

down, dude, on top of the world!

Zako squeals into a shovel of air

pouring over our faces.

You hear me, Yoland . . . I mean, uh . . .

Call me Yo’, okeh. I tell Zako,

trying to shake off the hot-cold wires

buzzin’ and snappin’ in my head.

Take a deep-deep breath. But it gets

jammed up in my nose. Wish I could see

Puerto Rico, like uncle DJ says:

Una playa boricua will cure you for life!

All I see is black waves, flashes

and watery-dots, and sharp streaks thin

as hairs. A giant flat clock by the moon.

Almost midnight.

Make up a story

In my head—barely breathing—

Bet mamá Mercedes sits by uncle DJ

and pull-pulls her pomegranate-colored rosary

from herself. Where is my Yolanda María?

She’s asking. She’s been gone for three days!

It’s her manda, she’s pulling. Just as I am

spinning my manda here in the air.

She rubs each bead as if it was

a seed, a river, she presses it

as if it was a mountain,

a machete from Cidra,

as if she was holding her father’s hand

across the oceans, as if he never forgot her

so far away waving adios

leaning on a small wooden bohío in Caguas,

thick green leaves

at his feet and the violin voice of the coquí frog

in the blue-green night air. Papi Reinaldo

rolls over on his side of the hospital room.

Mamá kisses uncle DJ’s hand buenas noches,

then sits back in her own small frame

and closes her eyes, her lips open

with my name again and again and her

hands shaky. Mamá?

All I see are the gooey heads

of Zako and Rezzy exploding

puff-puffing the night smoke,

gettin’ chopped, gettin’ loaded,

next to me. Sucking in, in, in, then—

Zako wraps his arms around Rezzy.

Lisssen to the ocean, he says

with his teeth out. He smears his

face against her cheek,

Come here, lisssen. He pushes her head down

into his shirt. For a moment, I see Rezzy

with Zako, she looks up and asks him,

Aren’t you going out with Marietta?

But, it isn’t Rezzy I am looking at.

Me. It’s only me

afraid and shattered.

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