taking breath in wrinkled flesh.
Tía tells me I am probably the daughter
of a water saint. All I know is I am most sure
of my place in the world
with the water combing my kinks,
the cold biting into my skin, & my arms
creating an arc over my head as I barrel through,
& battle too these elements.
Papi learned to swim in this cut of the Caribbean Sea.
Used to jump off the cliffs into the waiting blue.
When I was younger, he gave me lessons,
scoffing at the placidness of the nearby resort pool.
“Buenooo, the best way to learn to swim,
is to jump into a body of water that wants to kill you.”
It used to be funny when he said that.
Most days, he would watch from the sand
as I tried to become a thing with fins.
Some days, he’d strip off his shirt,
show off his hairy chest & jiggly belly,
& make me want to disown him on the spot.
The other barrio kids watched as “el Papi de Camino,”
the one who brought her cool shirts from the States,
would slide off his old-man sandals & hat, walk to a little peak,
& execute a dive, entering the water so smoothly
it would make el Michael Phelps jealous.
In those moments, Papi became a lago creature,
a human knife, a merman
from some ocean mythology—
so smooth I would search his neck for gills.
There was no current strong enough
that could pull against his push.
I am convinced Papi was made up of more water than most.
The little kids would cheer & try to climb his back,
so he would become a human surfboard too, & I would
say, “Ese es mi papi; he is mine all mine.”
Papi learned to swim in water that wanted to kill him.
That ocean can’t be so different; shouldn’t be any different.
If any man could take a hard dive & come up breathing,
it should be one who had practiced for just that his entire life.
My arms are tired, my joints screaming. I want to swim
until I become this water. The world fades when you are
under, & the ocean murmurs stay stay stay.
I swim out & come back, out & come back.
My lungs on fire. My arms shaking from the strain.
I could stop moving. I could just go.
I turn my head to breathe; a sharp whistle cuts me off midstroke.
Floating on my back, eyes opening to the darkening sky,
I do not have to look to know the figure at the shore.
“It’s getting late, Camino. The beach is dangerous at night.”
El Cero. In some ways it seems like I always knew
that Papi’s absence would bring baggage.
I tread upright in the water, trying to map out
the fastest escape route to get by El Cero
without having to go near him. Vira Lata wags his tail at me.
I wish he was more inclined to bare his teeth.
Even from a distance, I see El Cero’s eyes dip down
to where my nipples are cold as I tread.
& I know, the most dangerous thing on this beach
has nothing to do with the dark.
The most dangerous thing
is standing right in front of me.
El Cero is not a man to be trusted. Or a man to show fear.
Without lowering my head, I calmly walk past him,
snatch my shorts up, & suck my teeth in his direction.
Vira Lata must read my mood.
He comes over to rub against my leg,
& I pat him once to let him know I’m all right.
I want nothing to do with the crowing roosters,
or the viejos lighting candles, & Tía watching the news,
& people crowding the patio,
& the prayer circles, & the watchful eyes, &
the whispers about Papi being dead.
But whatever it is El Cero wants from me
I know it will be worse
than the momentary discomfort at Tía’s house.
Because El Cero will attach conditions to his condolences.
Papi didn’t like that I’ve had boys
flirting with me since I was twelve,
but he would have had to be around
to stop them, or to keep me
from flirting back. Plus he was never
as strict as he pretended.
I don’t mess with dudes from the barrio
who love gossiping at the domino bars
about the girls that they’ve slept with.
I usually only flirt
with the international boys from school.
The ones with American accents,
their blue passports & blue blood
both stamped with prestige & money;
those are the boys I switch my hips at.
Not because they’re cute or interesting—
they’re often obnoxious & only want a taste
of my gutter-slick tongue & brownness;
they act as if they could elevate my life with a
taste of their powder-milk-tinged pomp.
No, I date those boys because they are safe.
They can’t dance bachata or sing Juan Luis Guerra,
can’t recite Salomé Ureña or even name the forefathers;
they wrap their flag around their shoulders like a safety blanket,
& if a heart has topography,
I know none of these boys know the coordinates
to navigate & survive mine’s rough terrain.
In other words, these boys would be no distraction.
Papi was a tiguerazo.
A hustler. A no-nonsense street-smart guy.
He could sell water to a fire hydrant,
sell a lit match to a burning gas station.
Papi comes from here: Sosúa, Puerto Plata,
República Dominicana. & he’s always said
he never wanted me or my tía
to polish boots or sell lottery tickets, to know
hunger or the anger of going without.
& so our poor isn’t as poor as our neighbors’.
But it definitely isn’t as rich as my classmates’.
It’s the poor of an American sponsorship.
The poor of relying on Western Union
& a busy father & money that mostly goes to tuition;
the poor of secondhand Nikes, leather repainted to look new.
Papi was a hustler: a first cousin to sweat,
a criado of hard work. A king who built an empire
so I’d have a throne to inherit.
El Cero is not the kind of hustler Papi was.
El Cero hustles bodies; eagle-eyes young girls
from the time they are ten & gets them
in his pocket with groceries & a kind word.
When those girls develop & show the
bud of a blossom, he plucks them for his team.
& although most people here won’t admit they think like me,
a woman should be able to sell whatever she wants to sell.
But not if it’s at the insistence of a man. This man.
Word on the street is El Cero always gets a first taste
of the girls who work for him. Before he gussies them up
& takes them by the resort beach in cut-off tanks & short shorts
so the men from all over the world who come here for sun
& sex can give thumbs-up or -down to his wares. His women.