Angel & Hannah

Epic?
A new legend to toss skyward to salt our
constellations, not one to ball
into a fist or chuck in the dumpster. Spic
n’ chink, one might call them, from afar…
but peer closer: a soul and a soul.
He folds over her like a rosebud in sleep.
She traces her finger over his sad map of scars.
If America let them, would they spin fast & gold
as a Celia Cruz classic, lilting songs into the sea?)

Ski
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, he thinks
a song his mother used to sing,
diamonds tossed in snow wink
at him like these coy, bright-eyed girls on Hunter Mountain’s summit.
He inhales the iced air, frost-trees,
and when he glides down the mountain’s soft shoulder, his
tracks hiss spume like speedboat on lake~water —
he is black dolphin! Sea hawk! Any fierce, finned, winged thing, he shears
air with silver limbs like god-scissors,
wind singing a pegasus aria in his numb ears.
This fast, he could outrace death! Or fling
himself straight into its stark eyes. Unafraid, he floats in midnight sky above
whitecaps, slopes, gravity his only compass, he’s flying past fear
to a different music now — holy holy dark angel taking wing!


Jackie Robinson Expressway
The highway is a silver ribbon threaded
through a lush hair of trees. She gets lost in its curves,
its shushing becomes her night music.
She’s older now. She drives one-handed.
She knows these turns, seen them all before.
No longer a wet-lipped girl fidgeting
in livery cabs with Dominican drivers
who reek of Brut cologne and wink into the rearview.
She rides alone. Until sky breaks open. A greening
light. An empty highway she rides between dusk and
dawn, distance and time, watching the sun anoint
treetops, watching eyes of dull apartments catch aflame.
She drives, a silent witness with no name.
Every time, it’s like being born again —


Soul
I can’t believe you wasted so much time, Wanda sighs,
and Hannah remembers now, Angel’s eyelids trembling
like sails when she rocked above him, a maidenhead
tied to ship’s helm, hit by sprays of salt water, foam, lightning.
How loving him made her learn the world —
a girl moving her fingers against the rough Braille
of welfare, food stamps, Rikers, probation. Dim, dim,
it brightens then — Bushwick, her harsh-lit
classroom rife with his tiger-scent.
How loving him, she moved
from girl to flesh to martyr to dagger
to stone to water to woman.
Yes. Woman.
And would she call those years a waste,
or a small taste of heaven in a man ~ made hell?
Aigu, Wanda. You will never know my soul.


Desiree
Years later, Angel finally gets with Junie’s lil’ sister ~ Desiree,
who had an eye on him since lil’ kid days.
With Desiree, Angel didn’t have to be “better” ~
or hide his “dirty” habits ~
he could be free ~
like he was when they hugged & screamed
& played Cocolivio together back
in the summer of fourth grade ~
they always chose to hug each other, those two ~
got three babies now, lotsa big drama love scenes too,
like when Desiree made him tattoo a dragon
over Hannah’s name
to start a new story…
While he sat under da hot pen (again),
he realized he was scripting his life
with another woman now ~
Desiree was tough, into sexy goth, punk, metal, & black leather…
she wasn’t a runner ~ she was a fighter.
She would stand by her man
and live on her block with her familia forever
and survive da rock, crack, and heroin games.
She became his new ma, and in divine time,
they lived out their own chaotic, epic Legend.
(But sometimes, when Angel was alone & high,
late at night, after three blunts, two Coronas, & in a nostalgic mood,
he wondered where she flew off to…
she was too soft for New York, he thought ~
more of a Cali girl vibe…she hated
da bars on the windows everywhere in Brooklyn ~
Ugh. Looks like cages, she said, more than once ~
I gotta get outta here ~ it’s too cold, too crazy for me…
We have choices!
We have a right to live happy!
And I’m gonna carpe diem, yo,
by any means necessary!
Hannah used to proclaim, loudly,
dreaming of Berkeley and beaches,
shouting things at him crazily
while he grins, things
she wishes she could yell
at her pressure ~ cooker parents.
He wonders
if she has babies now too, or if she
just lives free as the wind still,
untethered & lost
as a golden ribbon
unraveling from a bouquet of heavily thorned, stunning roses ~
He secretly wonders: What became of the golden girl
who whispered songs & rhymes into his ears
and wanted to become air?
Who inhaled & kissed his warm temples
and grazed his long lashes with the grace of a gazelle?
A young girl who transformed into woman
at dusk with his touch, swaying over him like coconut fronds,
riding him like ocean waves till he filled her with stars?
He felt, at heart, she was far, far away…
After he tattooed a dragon over her name,
he brought honey & white daisies
for the Goddess of the Sea
who Jessie told him is Yemaya ~
when the familia went to Coney Island,
he took a moment to walk out to where shore meets sea alone,
and silently asked the sea ~ goddess to watch over & protect
Hannah’s many journeys as white petals
floated over water, fragile & lovely ~
slowly carried out by the rippling waves.
Por amor, mi amor.)
Desiree comes up behind him,
locking her arms around
his lean, rippled waist.
He lets out a deep sigh,
kisses the mother of his three
angels on her forehead,
takes her hand, and walks
with her back to their children,
whose little hands are busy
making a round castle in the sand.


Prayers
From lifetimes away, from islands apart ~ she still
wonders about her Angel as she holds a handful
of tiny, intricate shells in her hand ~ remembering
their summer days at Coney Island Beach,
she wonders if he’s caught
still living a stoned ~ dream ~ haze
or awakened to the beauty & possibility in being alive ~
she still prays for him and his family ~ his children ~ the future generations
to inherit his heated, hunted, dancing blood. Wishes
him well from afar. And Rafi ~
sweet Rafi. Last she heard, he lives ~
lives on ~ loves on ~ so beautifully
into his teens. New medicines