by Marina Bonanno

His hands were rough calluses and splinters. Uneven nails misshapen. He held the head of the tweezers between two blunt fingers. Donning pharmacy readers, he still couldn’t see the wood sliver buried deep. It smarted. Under golden orb of the yellow kitchen light he kept on a dimmer, the youngest peered, fingernail touching dirt embedded into scales of skin. “Maybe if you washed your hands…” He jerked his hand back from the singe that stung, sulking “I did!” Heavy work boots stomped out of earshot. She startled in alarm.

He pitched the burnt lightbulb from rough fingers toward her post holding the ladder, the driveway now semi illuminated by a fluorescent beam. His other hand held the wooden ladder in a secure grip. The glass shards impacted unceremoniously, blood coursing from wound obscuring the extent of damage. Daughter sat fretting under a light not on dimmer now. Room silent, save the questions from saucer eyes watching in dread. Mother sat still as stone while thick fingers pulled pieces from flesh with tweezers, unskilled and impatient.

A black and white newspaper underneath a jar holding turpentine. A soiled rag in dark colors, edges fraying. An old brush with a laminated handle touting an irregular wood grained pattern. Abrupt instructions delivered through jerky movements and gruff commands, “Use the turpentine to clean the paint off.” A Dickies uniform in drab olive, a color of unease, inspired belts of Kermit’s, “It’s not easy being green” or spontaneous chases as the green monster. Rolled up sleeves on arms laden with thick untamed hair. A jangle of keys in palm.

The mixing doesn’t remove the stains. The brush won’t come clean. She doesn’t how to do this right. She hadn’t asked what to do if. Liquid spilled onto asphalt through newsprint too saturated to absorb questions.

Hiding upstairs when he returns and cleans up the driveway. Workman’s hands cover mistakes, transform miniature shutters black, paint turquoise accents onto plain white background.

She tries to explain the mess, though lacking the soggy words that had pooled onto pavement outside. But inside, that house, she knows she doesn’t care for it.

by Maria Lisella

There was nothing small about Joseito as we called him.

He looked half man, half boy, with glasses, a smile bright as Sunday almost all the time. Barely any beard, and a kind of joy only seen in kids.

And he was round, not fat, not skinny, not muscular but jovially round. So appropriate for the office he worked in as a mailboy … really what were we all thinking calling him a mailboy in the first place? No idea. Mailroom guy I switched to but he didn’t care and didn’t notice.

The office was always buzzing, we worked at a magazine but a weekly one so deadlines streamed in every day … something was always due. But if you saw Jose ito, you had a chance to look up, exchange smiles and put the world right for the moment because what’s more important than exchanging a smile for no reason at all …
In some ways he was ridiculously cheerful. I’d watch him dancing from desk to desk as if he were wearing earbuds and the latest Latin beats were streaming into his ears, but no, he carried that music in himself. I used to wonder what was Joseito’s secret to never getting mad, never feeling dissed?

Sure, Joseito’s job was pretty non-stressful and he seemed to somehow love it. He told me he loved seeing every single person in our office every day. A simple creature maybe? But he acted as if he were loved and I guess we did love him in that non-conscious way you get used to this little stream of light that arrived daily … the only time you missed it is when Joseito was on vacation, which he rarely did.

“At one time the manager suggested we put a bin at the front of every row of cubicles, but I said, no, I want to go to every single desk and meet every single person here … I want to give them their mail not deliver or dump it…” As long as Joseito could do that in the same amount of time, he got his wish.

That meant he could not linger. That meant he did not know tha t much about us or us about him. We just knew we could count on his good vibe passing through as we wrote our articles, interviewed people and rolled our eyes at the boss.

The other reason Joseito loved, loved the mailroom was that he played every single contest in creation. And he gave our office as the home address. He’d gather his own sack of mail and take it home with him as if he were going home to a big-ass dinner party with a menu of pernil, yucca, rice and beans just how he liked it and his mother’s flan. I never knew if he even had a mother. I did know he lived alone.

He asked me once as Latino to Latina, “Don’t you have faith in luck”? And I had to admit two things: first I was not Puerto Rican, which he wanted to believe I was as he always referred to me as a “credit to the race” and secondly, me and luck, well I tossed it somewhere in the back of my mind with god, angels and saints I did not pray to either.

This all shocked Joseito because he said it was important to court luck, to carry amulets, to try everything that could possibly deliver something good and that meant luck, it meant Santeria gods, it meant going to the botanica to get more stuff like herbs, leaves, and potions. It made no sense not to try luck, he was firm on that.

Instead of watching TV at night, Joseito filled out contest forms from everywhere … it was too early for as much internet activity as we have now, but Jose ito had his ways to scope out the next contest.

“People tell me I am wasting my life playing contest, that it is dumb and only stupid people do this, but Mami, someone is winning those contests, no”? With me he let his NYRican slip into his language.

Joseito knew better – if you did not enter contests and sweepstakes you could not win a single thing. He won appliances, computers, toiletries for a year, he won a microwave, a trip to Universal Studios, a cruise, and a trip to Disneyland … in fact, he did not buy that much, as long as there was something to win.

His dream was to win a weekend in Las Vegas and attend a Marc Anthony concert in Vegas. And so, he entered the Publisher’s Warehouse Contest over and over and over …

Not everyone found Joseito as fascinating as I did: some snickered underestimating our Joseito, thinking he was simple and had missed it but he smiled through clenched teeth and caught every gesture even if it happened behind his back … he was sensitive in his own way. He picked up vibes and I had the sense that Joseito had his own brand of power somewhere between the mailroom and his home.

That he could in a minute reach out to his favorite amulet, god or goddess of luck and wish you something entirely treacherous.

 

That Dress

Damned, I did it again. Am still not living up to your good habits of giving myself plenty of time to get anywhere, so am late again. Ever since you died, it is as if the world lost its direction, but mostly it is me. Ran breathless again up and down the steel-tipped stairs, raced for the train, squeezed into the doors shutting like a guillotine and am going again, in the wrong direction.

I try to move into the car, but I can’t, my dress is stuck in the door and I can see its rainbow stripes waving back at me, fluttering outside and it is my all-time favorite. Fear grips me as if this is a life gone wrong, a life at stake, but it’s just a dress I tell myself, not a living thing, not a precious person, it is replaceable. I am fast forwarding its demise, my frivolous sorrow. People are dying in the world, this is only a dress.

The woman next to me sees I am in distress, assures me that within four stops, the subway car doors will open on MY side of the car. “Stand still, you don’t want to tear it,” she offers. I feel better, she understands my dilemma.

I love this dress. Bought it when I was about 26. That was when I had my first “real” job and purchased a mini wardrobe to match my first real journalist job writing for a labor union. Glamorous, it wasn’t but I told myself it was what I was born to do. Lucky to be paid for doing something I loved.

Imagine all my ideals in one package: ok, it was not a progressive union but at least a union; I traveled around the country, wrote stories about people who were not famous, just the rank and file – all heart and loyal to the union in so many small towns and cities across the country. And I was working on the side of the angels.

That dress along with others was a sophisticated nod to my new station in life: it was simple, elegant, V-necked and backed, deep cuts at the sleeves, cotton with an eleastic band at the waist, covered with a cumberbun-size black fabric as a belt. Because of its cut, I could wear it into my sixties and now it was flapping outside in a filthy subway tunnel rife with rats and soot, and god knows what else.

I was tempted to yank it, but it would split off my body. Stop after stop, the doors slid opened on the other side of the subway car.

And did I mention the colors? It’s bold, vertical striped, Caribbean colors that calls attention to itself and the woman in it. It is unlike any other items in my closet – mostly Catholic school girl navys, grays, blacks – forgettable.

This dress worn with a wide-brimmed hot pink sun hat in summer announces me wherever I’d go.

Still I tried to inch and edge the thinning cotton fabric, tried to coaxe it out of the door little by little, but I knew it was already worn, thinner, the seams shuld be reinforced – does anyone do that with clothes anymore? I envisioned it would be lost and I’d arrive, god knows who remembers where, half clothed if I yanked it.

Just then a reprieve, the doors opened behind me, the dress intact. I exited and promised myself and the dress that I’d get those seams reinforced before I’d lose it all.

by Maria Lisella

It required a stitch or two and so I tacked it
the two tabs that were sticking out
of her cheap striped shirt—
made in Bangladesh reads the label
where women who know nothing
about raised fists of labor united or
the IWW, or the AFL-CIO, sweat
for 14 hours a day, and 35 cents an hour
turn out shirts just like this one stitched
with labels that read: H&M, Calvin Klein,
Ann Taylor, Zara, Target and, yet,
when a factory goes up in flames or
crumbles to the ground in New Delhi,
Bangladesh, Ahmedabad, collapsing
into tangles of steel, concrete blocks,
mortar, or fizzle in flames, the label-owners
deny those women have ever
been making their products and those
women have nothing to do with their
$2.4 trillion dollars in profits.

by Queen María

She has always been pretty sensitive. Living in a brown body requires a thick skin. She loves with a full heart giving her all to everything she does. She does not know how to love half way. She is an all or nothing kind of girl. For as long as she can remember, she has had an immense need for acceptance. She never believed she was worthy of love. She thought no one would really ever love her. Her own mother could not give her the unconditional love she craved so much.

She tried everything to get that maternal unconditional love that so many take for granted. She tried pleasing her mom, hoping she will get praise in return. She was disappointed so many times. She remembers every harsh criticism, as if her mom was still here. How could she forget her white mom repeating, “You are black. You must be perfect. The color of your skin does not allow you the luxury of making mistakes”.

“I will do better next time momma. I will work harder and I will make you proud!”, she answered when she got home with a 98 instead of a perfect score of 100. She must have gotten some praise, but she simply can not remember any. The concept of being loved just because one exists was so foreign to her. She thought all these years that she had to be really nice and love first in order to be loved back.

Growing up, she was so well behaved, except when she saw her dad drinking. She would transform herself in those moments screaming so loudly as if her life depended on it. She broke her dad’s bottles into pieces or poured down their content. Desperation invaded her. She felt as if she was possessed. No one could stop her in those moments, not even her mom’s intimidating voice promising a harsh punishment for disrespecting her dad.

She was determined to save her family. Her child’s mind believed it was her job to make sure everyone in that house was happy. She was led to believe that if only her dad stopped drinking everything would be OK. She was willing to do anything to get him to give up alcohol. She begged him, she fought, she rebelled, but she could not save him. They both lost their battle with alcohol.

Her dad tried so many times to get sobber. He succeeded temporarily, only to return to the same way of numbing his pain. She was too little to understand. She does now. She never tasted alcohol in her life, not even a drop, but she battles an eating disorder. Those demons, I guess, run in her family.

She fought battles that were not hers. Nothing changed. She kept trying though. She never gave up even after her mom’s death. She was so lucky. Her black dad was so nice. Even when she threw away his alcohol and disrespected him, he never offended her or lay a hand on her. Her white mom, on the other hand, severely punished her.

She kept screaming, trying to be heard but no one listened. She was alone in her battle. She kept trying to do the right thing, over and over, at her own expense. She only wanted the best for her family. She dreamed of seeing her mom smile and her dad sober.

She thought naively that her parent’s divorce was the answer. She kept repeating, “Mom leave him. We will be Ok without him. I will help you mom. I am here. I will take care of my little sister. I can help you. You are not alone mom. I am no little anymore, just leave him”. Little did she know, she only got one side of the story. She regrets not realising this while her dad was still alive.

She got so tired of screaming and not being heard, that she decided to escape, by going to study abroad. She went half around the world, but she never felt safe. Her mom never divorced her dad. Instead, her mom left the family forever at 45 years old, followed about a year after by her dad, who could not live without his adored wife. There they were, both sisters, orphans with no other family to support them emotionally.

She did her best, in caring for what was left of her family, now including a gorgeous niece. She never stopped screaming, but no one ever heard her. She finally realized the only person that could hear her was herself. Then she started tending to that desperate cry she has chosen to ignore for so many years. Nowadays, she tells her story so others realize they can choose to hear themselves.

by lynn parkerson

Life’s force driving us forward. Life’s force without direction – its own direction.
We are its creation, at its mercy. We have no choice,
But to try.

We get old – zapped by the long shadow of regret. But we tried – and failed.
We will always try and always fail.

Rooms

father ceiling, mother floor, 4 walls of sisters, enclosed, but there were windows. I flew out and went far away to faraway countries. At that time far away Yugoslavia, East Berlin.
How exciting, how strange, how bizarre –
The bakeries where the frosting on all the cakes was gray and there as only one author, Hegel, in the book store window. Alexanderplatz.
That faraway country my home then.

The rooms called me back. father ceiling, mother floor, walls of sisters.
Now the ceiling gone and the floor about to collapse. One sister wall up in smoke, gone.
3 walls left and now the structure like some 70’s crazy architecture, Vermont commune, geodesic dome.

I tried. We tried. We fail and we try again.

 

Love and Baggage

Acrobatics. You’ve got to be good, great in fact. The virtuosity. One word leading to another, just the right rhythm, the rhyme, the forgone conclusion, rap it up. It’s work, it’s play. I won’t work at it, not right now, maybe never. I’m already an acrobat. Twisting, turning, showing my good angle, balanced on the edge of tumult. No solid ground here. I’m inside the tube of the wave. Is the water fine?

My mother is dying. It was only just mid-February when I picked her up at the airport, home from her annual visit to California, visiting her sister. Now that she can’t think straight, is frail, they take her off the plane in a wheelchair. She will be delivered to me at the baggage claim. I watch the suitcases stream onto the conveyor belt.

Then – the real baggage arrives, the elderly in wheelchairs. There is my mother. The hard part, knowing that I too am baggage. My children will pick me up at the baggage claim. If I’m lucky. Or maybe everything will be different. I hope so. But the end is never pretty.

It is a brilliant day – pure perfection. I am alone here, a sister on the way. We’re going to see my mother. We’ll walk outside here; water, sand, sky, leaves, flowers. We’ll remember that place where my mother took us when we were small, when our family broke apart. The water, sand, sky, rocks instead of leaves and the beach roses. From now on every time I stoop down to take in the scent of this sandy rose I will say I love you.

by Ermestina Sanjur

he sees

maturity
gravitation towards older heads

i see

narcissism
temper tantrums demand we stop, listen, soothe
in public & private

he sees

a budding anti-capitalist
a disciple in Halloween, Christmas, Easter conspiracies

i hear

capitalism in each capricho fulfilled

he sees

humor
in the words that intercept
conversations between adults

i see

brazenness
entertained too often

he sees

a trilingual prodigy
in words memorized to recite
when the camera’s on

i see

a monolingual monstro
with an anglicized tongue
whose beady eyes judge my mouth

he sees

creativity
on coloring book pages
in animated stories about cartoon characters

i see

color blindness
hands clasp a switch with ease
yet cannot build play-doh sculptures
incapable to retell, capable to lie
compared to other children
what’s the difference?
this immigrant parent dreams of raising
an anti-imperialist child
a badass who doesn’t care to please, impress classmates
well-versed in discerning propaganda from facts
who knows both histories:
the one to pass tests in school
and the one to contribute en largas sobremesas
meanwhile

he seeks

to preserve innocence
paying attention to the news
good grades
restrained exuberance
aren’t required
youth as an excuse

i see

a hypocrite
no fault of his own
a product of time & environment

by Linda Quigley

Today’s warmth
Reminds me
My fondest memories
Sand in my toes
Toes in the water
Still cold
From the long spring
Husband
Children
Friends
Over the years
A favorite time
This year
Feels so different
Hesitant to make
Plans
Even the summer itself
Feels tenuous
All the usual events
Cancelled or online
But the ocean
The bay
The inlets
Seagulls
Piping plovers
Terns
Myriad varieties of fish
The deer
The wild turkeys
Endure
Thrive
Undulating dunes
Beach plum blossoms
Roads shaded by feathery boughs
Colors absolutely vivid at 5 PM
Dear, dear summer
I want to hold you close
Like a lover
Feel your warmth
Taste your corn and tomatoes
Smell the breeze off the sea
Hear the birds in the woods
Touch the water on my skin
The towel as I lay upon it
Remembering the embraces of dear friends.

 

Ode to Lunch

To sit with friends
Gossip
Drink
Peruse
The menu
Question
The specials
Savor
That first bite
Catch up
On the news
Plan
The next theater outing
Admire
Each other’s jewelry
Comment
On the noisiness
Or rare quiet
The food
Prices
The waiter/waitress’s manner
Discuss
Our children
The good, the bad, the ugly
Do it again
The next day
Or the next week
With the same friend
Or a different one
Take out the charge card
Divide the bill
Curtain in a few minutes
Time to go.

 

Recipes

Recipes for life
The measuring spoons
Of generations
Cups that runneth over
The drizzle of love
Sparingly applied
Pinch that salt
Over wounds incurred
Unknowingly inflicted
Fodder for shrinks
Honeyed hugs
From sweethearts
Lighten the fraught feeling
Of leftover sentiments
That laden emotion
Of starchy excess
A balance
Of nutrients required
Slice, mince
Chop roughly
Crumble carefully
Saute’ lightly
Simmer over a low flame
Bake until done
Roast masterfully
Make it!
Eat it!
Live it!

Fully.

by Leonora M.

We were in love, in deep deep love. You saw parts of me that I didn’t yet see for myself. You created pieces of me that made me whole. You loved me daily, more than I could ever imagine, sometimes more than I loved myself. You wrote the words to my perfect love story on the spine of my back. The hairs on my body stood up in salutation to the tip of your fingers caressing the essence of my being. I’d lay in bed thinking “God how did I get so lucky”, she’d use the force of the universe, by you kissing me as a reply. I then told you that God is a woman, and you’d comply. In me you found your God and honestly, I was scared of that responsibility but selfishly wanted all of your attention, because you had mine. This perfect not so perfect love story of mine. I imagined us lying in bed, I mean laying in bed. This image looping over and over like my favorite song on repeat. A world we created, that only you and I coexisted in. A love story that would never end. My lover, my world, my best friend. It was just you and I. I swore I couldn’t breathe without you navigating through this life with me. I needed you then, now and in my afterlife. But suddenly I was gasping for air. My chest is tight, I was paralyzed in a moment that no longer existed, unable to maneuver through the now. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. You abandoned me without warning, leaving without footsteps I could follow, haunted by the rejection from my entire universe without warning. Left with mere memories that I now despise, haunted by your other face that I was never introduced to until now. How could this person exist inside of you without me knowing. What ghosts were you compressing for so long that you became lost within the houses that haunted you. I guess my biggest question now is … Who are you?

 

Untitled 2

I tried with you. Despite it all, I tried,

I did …

You lived in a gated community

Barricaded and isolated from understanding the true concept of love. You spent nights staring at the wall telling fictional stories to validate your actions. Rewriting history and never giving credit. Your “try” was unsafe and quiet frankly you “trying” was a consistent invitation to war. I raised my white flag, but you continued to see red. You wanted to love me, but unfortunately, you weren’t willing to learn how. Instead you’d send your army of inner demons. I was young, so I continued to try, I fought tirelessly.

A broken frame I fought desperately to put back together. We tried. Housing so much trauma from our past we were unable to make a home. Wanting to feel safe within our exchange but many questions remained. I wanted it so bad. I ached from the constant blows received when I recklessly lowered my shield, trying to talk to you. I wanted to trust you that bad. I also thought you trusted me enough to meet me half way, but our journey did not align although I once thought our paths did. We were sore. There is no home here.

And as I mourn the picture which lies within the broken frame, as I retreat from all possibilities of finding reconcile, I realize that you were never open enough to changing your perspective. To seeing the blue sky and captivating ocean, traveling beyond to visit the unknown. A place unfamiliar to you, a language you did not speak but would have to learn, a new culture to experience, a path you never walked. In plain terms you were never open enough to travel to a place of love. All which is love and all that consist of loving me. I tried.

by Jo

I’m afraid of heights that I cannot control, but power to living and not just existing…

I tripped over green and yellow magnetic tiles as I tied up the last loose ends of this move, hoping that her little fingers could handle cleaning up the remaining pieces I could not prioritize on her behalf. She started singing while freeing the floor of toy debris, so I began to hum while packing, believing that the humdrum of notes would carry me through the electric dust. It compounded and worked me to an incessant sneeze. She laughed because I became Snow White’s dwarf and in a bout of uncontrollable joy, tripped over herself while retrieving a tissue for me. I reckoned it helpful and thereafter, quickly washed my hands to avoid being more intimate with the very thing that separated me from going onward.
Then, it dawned on me that I was not jumping ship or abandoning what I orchestrated to be a life for us. I was being responsible–with her needs, my vision, and with His plan; Lord knows it’s easy to become the lost sheep when curiosity is misguided.

I dried my hands and flickered lingering droplets towards her face. Her hands fluttered like butterfly wings over her lashes in an attempt to block the water from landing. Her attempt failed not because she was incapable, but because she was still laughing and its haphazard rolling prevented her from focusing on avoiding the water. I secured the tissue around my nose, watching her cheeks plump like the yolk of the sun upon a horizon, and rolled my eyes like a schoolgirl playing the dozens.

She skipped her knock knee legs back to her toy chest as I grazed over the perimeter one final time. We were really leaving and the part of me that questioned the transition was the part of me I needed to leave too. So, I called her to the door while lifting my last box, retreating to the idea that I finally trusted more in my assignment than my comforts. She bolted to the door, unicorn bag in tow, “Mommy, why do people say women come from Jupiter?”

“Because they don’t know that we belong on Mars.”

by Jo

she turned to nestle
captivating the right side to a point of rest
discontenting my left hip
it hadn’t slept in days
droplets of pressure rained
and asked questions I couldn’t answer
as if a silent fist knocked on the door
of a silent room
it was night
and while I was not alone
i was craving for other company
where was he when the moon was full
we sped past the sunrise
and I singed my back on its rising heat
avoiding the argument between Jupiter and Mars
legs were the bones of Ezekiel’s dinosaurs
as water plummeted to the privileged floor
she held me up
to prevent the wreckage from reminding me of forgiven sins
they had a way of sneaking up the back stairwell
and creeping like a broken relevé
to healed places
i was struck by a fluid lightning
and debated with the numbness
because all I wanted was to feel again
yet the peculiar crowning
gave me a reason to stare back in the mirror
where I trapped a hope and a dream
we pushed together
and felt His surge
permissed me to let go
so I pushed again
and again
and again
the mirror collapsed
because the dream woke up
and I wondered about its quiet
it finally let out
so I retreated to the sweat of my pillow
relieved to now know why people scream
because something is happening
and it’s big
and it’s screaming too