Summer burns me
into three shades of
believable Boricua.
Come, summer! I’m ready!
I’ve got Bad Bunny in my headphones.
The bronze on my shoulders
are like the tassled shoulder pads
of a uniform
I can only don
once a year.
A uniform of pride.
It won’t get questioned.
Once the sun has knighted me,
on both shoulders, and
my crown.
– Rachel R. Vasquez, 2020
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
I’m ready for ya summer!
Click clack on cement past the flip flap stand, down over by the heavy beats and la’s of the boom box.
The screech on the road pulls the leash on my neck, and I wonder how tires hiss.
Boppin’ and chewin’ my pop stick by the slick man who licks his lips as he mmm’s at swish and swivels.
Little girls hop and skip on chalk grids in the chain parks ‘cause big kids boycott swings.
As they squeak and rust, I plug in ear wires with a shrug to provide my mind with breathing support.
Calligraphy bricks line up by yellow cliffs where you can see the rats race.
Thunder rolls in trenches, sparks snap rails,
noses lost in the gray-scale paper. The lifeless paper.
With frost in a cup, hunger tugs my sleeve.
So I flip flop upon freshly drenched summer to where you can scream with ching in your fingers.
I tinker with the slurp bubbles, between jingling metal and my grease pod –
over the stoop dwellers,
sometimes guarding carnival bodegas.
Kangaroo pouched fellas shaking up copper dust on the bottom of one dollar coffee cups.
Finally through the turn and shove into the clock’s hug where I bend and shift up the light switch that flickers over the table that mail has consumed.
My last move on this night’s end and day’s routine, is to snoozes where relief sings me soothing odes.
Tightly secure in my place of sighs, beside wailing windows.
This four-sided burrito roll. This place I call home.
– Rachel R. Vasquez, 2007, revised 3/12/2015
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Weather is getting nice around here. Hoping I can go to that place where I can scream with ching in my fingers soon – aka the chuchifrito place. One coquito and an accapuria please!
Sunhats shave ice blocks under umbrella stands
Strap backs pendulum their hips
Water runs through flip flops around gradient sprayed concrete
Ink snakes along bronze waists
Party horns honk on trollies
Whistles screech
Where the white T’s palm rubber to a wall
Speakers ride their shoulders
Husky chants: “Que bonita bandera”
And the malta men spinning black dotted blocks on turntables
Shake their beaded necks like maracas
The cowbell-
tap- tap –tap-
tap- tap-
The rope slaps with clapping girls
Singing past the mating calls
Hissing from glitter fenders at snappy fingers
The hoop ears with stoop scuffs on stringy rears
They only stop when the weasel pops on postered trucks
Fabric rises like war filled spears
The crowd’s amok
Between flickering lights and clashing beers
– Rachel R. Vasquez, 4/28/2008
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
I wanted to wait until summer to put this up, but with the freezing temperatures and snow as of late – I guess I became summer sick.
This was inspired by what my neighborhood was like as we neared the Puerto Rican parade in the summer. Bushwick was full of pidaqua stands, salsa booming from the cars with giant flags draped across their trunks, street merchants selling all sorts knick knacks, kids playing hand ball in the parks, jump rope, ice cream trucks – man it was the place to be! If there’s one thing I miss since moving to the Bronx, it’s that Latin fever that happens once the summer rolls around, nothing beats that atmosphere. Nothing. Nada. I haven’t found a chuchifrito place around here yet that sells coquito, and that makes a girl a bit home sick…
Photo from Eric Espino @ https://ericespino.com/
Rachel's Floetry 