ManhattAntilles

Lola Rodr

ManhatantillanaquesoythatIam
Whose expatriate, exiled sounds
Shout from my lips
In grasps of half-heard freedoms made word,
Escupo mudo,
Mute spit.

Whose voice is extinguished
Behind the deaf bars of my teeth,
A voice that sings to the people,
Without reply.

My feet without ground,
Like air-less wings
These songs have
No place to belong.
They stretch between
Two islands like the hangman’s rope
Assassinating my soul
With the authenticity of death,
A clothesline with souls flapping
Above the invisible place
Between, Where the Caribbean Sea
And the Atlantic Ocean meet.

An ocean within
That swallows my words,
That silences my voice
That a wave, a tongue
Then another.

ManhatAntillas
Can be found at the top of a wave, Since
there is no shore where oceans meet.
Voices sinking to the bottom
Rising to the top
Where the mouth of the sky
Will form syllables for the wind.

The night, too, will form lips.
Mixing its disowned and desired sounds
Into creole beauty noise Blending shouts
With longing.

El oc

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