#patillas

Agua Salada, Patillas, PR - April, 2023

They tell me I have my fathers eyes, ever changing color and always focused

Combined with my mothers smile, the ever so slightest tooth gap that fills the room with contagion of joy and presence

My presence is subtle, yet powerful, like the pink sky above a hot June day in New York City

Colorful like Italian ice, comforting like cafe con leche with soda crackers from the tin

I reside above the border of Brooklyn and Queens, it seems as though I always reside among multiple worlds

The sound of Hector Lavoe fills my kitchen, smells like the homeade batch of sofrito made this morning, green from all the peppers

Green like the hidden sanctuary garden my great grandma made in her Brooklyn backyard that resembles her Sicilian farmhouse

The rooster crows every morning, the M train off of Seneca is your alarm clock

They say Im a jack of all trades like my late abuelo, who sold piraguas in Patillas with a love for the ocean and Bruce Lee

Pisces like me, a natural musician

Social and witty like my Gemini grandpa, who took night classes to learn English as he worked full time to feed 6

They say I have an intimidating walk and look like my Scorpio nana, Brooklyn in her step, always ready to fight, vaseline in her pocket

Strong legs like my Italian uncles who can outrun a bus

My brain calculates every second like a competitive game of dominoes at a BBQ, always remembering like my grandmother who kept all of my childhood belongings

My hair as burnt orange as the the map of Sicily in her dining room she never threw out, my skin the fairest olive like the inside of a Christmas flan with a side of Coquito

Respectful like Bendiciones at the end of a phone call, loud like an Italian Sunday dinner 

I reside among two worlds, yet I often feel disconnected in a galaxy of space filled with my broken Nuyorican Spanish slang and lack of familiarity to the Amafi coast

Yet I am made among multiple roots of an old family tree

Me arranco los bigotes de crepé. Me borro el negro de las cejas, el rojo de los labios y las rayas que marcan las arrugas. Me unto la cara con vaselina hasta dejarla bien limpia.

Sobre la mesa, la peluca y las patillas junto con un montón de libros.