negra flor de agua morenita
cuál el remitente de tu calle
cuál la dirección de tus mareas
de ti sale el cielo que es un llanto.
tú eres mi naufragio yola mía
tú eres mi viaje
allá al fondo verde el alvéolo
carga cuanta alga
dejas anidar en tus costillas.
allá al fondo desta lengua
los dedos de tu sal
morena
son siempreflor de costa tan ajena
tallo de documento inmarcesible.
el trajín de tu carne
rompe en sombra
contra las olas que mecen cada pétalo en tu piel
el trajín de tu carne abandonada
busca su remitente y yo no sé
a dónde enviarla
a qué calle morenita
a qué cuadra de qué barrio de cristal
donde esperen el aviso de tu muerte.
ay morena
morenita mía
negra flor de agua,
el naufragio de tu carne y tu suspiro
es el naufragio desta sal.
morenita black water flower
what’s your return address
what’s the direction of your current’s flow
out of you comes the sky that’s a cry.
you’re my shipwreck my yawl
you’re my crossing
there in the green deep the alveolus
lays as much algae
as you’ll allow a nestling in your ribs.
in the deepest recesses of this tongue
the salty sweat of your fingers
morena
are everblossom on so foreign a shore
remnant stem of an unfading passport.
your body’s swaying
breaks in the shadows
against the waves that rock your skin’s every petal
abandoned your body billows
in search of its home address and I know not
where to send it
to what street morenita
to what block of which neighborhood of glass
where they wait for the news of your death.
oh morena
morenita mía
black water flower
your body’s wreckage and your sigh
is this salt’s shipwreck.
Reprinted with permission of the author, translator, and Cardboard House Press.
—
Mayra Santos-Febres is a Puerto Rican author, poet, novelist, professor of literature, essayist, literary critic, and author of children’s books. She studied literature at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and has a doctorate from Cornell University. She is the coordinator of the Racial and Afrodiasporic Studies Program at the University of Puerto Rico. She has won numerous international awards and recognitions including a Guggenheim Fellowship for Latin American and Caribbean Fiction. Her literary work has been translated into French, English, Italian, Romanian, Korean, Portuguese and Icelandic.
Vanessa Pérez-Rosario is professor of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon (University of Illinois Press 2014) and the editor of Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement (Palgrave 2010). She translated into English Mayra Santos-Febres’ poetry collection Boat People published by Cardboard House Press in 2021.
