They call it the shoreline,
el abismo que tiene poder
too wide to hear plain truth
so replace your split frame
con un coquí cuya voz grita
Lo siento, la primera palabra
siempre es permiso. Its
bramble song, catching sand
in its test of boundary, forgive
its mythic forgery creada
a través del mar. What to feed
a schism of necessity que se
parece a un hombre, the halfbreed
coquí laments rain in el vientre de
la selva, drowns its limbs for not
knowing el ancho de su sed.
How sad, no puede hablar
Español? The room fills with
dirt / liquid, su abuela se ahoga
porque no podía salvarla.
Image Credits: Ramiro Ramirez
Noel Quiñones is an AfroBoricua writer, performer, and educator born and raised in the Bronx. He has received fellowships from Poets House, CantoMundo, and Brooklyn Poets. His poetry will be included in the forthcoming "¡Manteca! An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets" published by Arte Publico Press, having already been published in Pilgrimage Press, Winter Tangerine Review, Asymptote, & elsewhere. Noel is the founder of Project X, an arts organization dedicated to uplifting the voice of Bronx and Latinx artists, and the co-founder of Piel Cafe Poetry, an AfroLatino Spoken Word Collective on tour throughout the United States. Visit him at www.elninoquinones.com or @NQNino322