my island is not imagined.
Like the African drums
of the last freed slave,
like the new-born eyes
of the first mestizo
and the ailing sigh
of the last taino child
she beats and dances
she cries freedom,
calling me Amapola, Manuela,
mi hermana, mi hija.
My island,
my island is not imagined.
With that same frantic echo
which was suddenly born
on the same day we parted ways,
she beckons me and captures me,
whispering infant memories,
holding me in her pregnancy,
taking me to her Caribbean sun,
drowning me in the depths
of her loving Atlantic breath.
My island,
my island is not imagined.
She speaks with clarity,
assuring me in a rapture
that she is as real as my own mother,
as my own voice, as my own flesh
as I dream and dream of her promise,
as I sail with an open rose in my hands
to the magic treasure awaiting for me
within the foamy softness
of her divine golden shores.
