small drops of sounds of a country
carry them overseas
squeeze into pockets the vowel-cradle in throat and palate tongue-tip to consonants,
whole-body laughter for language, fingerprint-friction-graze with guitar, vendor voices crack-opening
wind, hands shocking knife into coconut—carry even that ten-barrel-tense under-the-breath get down
don’t ask why
why carry centuries and mountains of pain without cure? hold tight to SAUDADE echoing in the
engine, to every cellular storyline among all twenty thousand plant species of the mata atlântica, to green
hope of beginning never ending in beaded necklaces protecting your throat—bem meu bem—mas why
instead listen when the shudder-thru of plane landing on flat land
flat-lands you to other, to invasive species, why would you cover
the body of your nation with colorless clothing the depths of your sound
be too loud for an america that doesn’t know itself embarrassed you know
your self—even below the gaze of sad gray-clad man asking why you tremble—you know
the art in your veins goes back and back but aristotle isn’t your daddy
you grow accustomed to america untangling your hair by sheer force, you realise
sometimes, you do desire to belong to jagged edges, you know? melting to rapid-witted flashes of
expression, to centralized power, becoming three-act realism too linear, established, harsh
to dare be stepped upon
each day, you negotiate. there is migration of land, then there is migration of soul. you test how far
over sea the umbilical cord can stretch, how much dissonance chords can take. one can take
many things at borders, in presses, from classrooms, from homes
mangoes, words, worlds liable to disappear your pockets stay intact
they can’t censor spirit. raw-red new nation strives to make sense of you, monstrous you—
microscope you—well past customs—you become experiment
they shine light into your america-watered eyes
to catch the un-american activities
but migration is not a metaphor
fear and violence are not romantic
a country doesn’t get an editor
so it’s hard to wake and make art frantic
to keep from getting regurgitated
foreign body in body of giant
nothing about us without us grumbles in the belly of a society
until your living and language become liability and impropriety—
but multitude isn’t either, lady liberty whispers in ear. you and she, star-crossed
romeo and juliet, long long to lock hands, share many-languaged laughters with wind.
it is indeed a privilege to pocket love you feel for those who do not know they do not know
a people is never lone incidental puddle in history each drop of love runs deep as sea
all is heavy,and still you are a good pocketer.artist, de necessidade. believe you are
as tranquila as you were when you were five
floating on the vowels, wrapping your mother’s hair around two tiny fingers,
convinced you could plant and preserve and prove the worth of a world of your family’s safe scent
in the creviced map of your tiny hand
