Atlántico
by Irene Vázquez
my hairdresser tells me
los hombres puertorriqueños no sirven
pa nada,
& I do not listen,
press my hair, book a flight,
buy a new red lipstick from Walgreens,
the first day I see him I wear my favorite white linen sundress,
accidentally flash a parking lot attendant,
at the bar before I meet him I read poetry,
order a mango whiskey sour,
pretend that this is my life, something I do
on a regular basis,
before I meet him, Lupe saying I had a dream,
that there’s another woman,
call me as soon as you get this
I can’t get the memory of you crying
out of my head, & I do not listen
to the voicemail,
I meet him in the parking lot of the bar,
& he bursts into a smile, takes my suitcase,
which I love because sometimes I get tired
of caring for myself,
he says, what are you working on
& do you remember
how we said
we’d get our ears pierced together, & you’ve always
been so capable,
how we were going to law school,
& this is Julissa, my girlfriend,
she’s meeting us for dinner,
& I think Ave María Purísima
he has done it again,
but I go to dinner, I laugh,
I allow myself all our memories,
because I know this will be the last time,
the three days are a blur, taxi cabs,
museums, long walks around the campus
where they study,
I eat,
sometimes vomit it up
because it’s too rich & this island’s
bacteria do not know me yet,
& the last night I sit him down,
on the too-small sterile AirBnB couch,
night had fallen outside,
he wants to make sure I have
cash for the cab to the airport,
& I ask who claims you,
I keep asking
& who do you claim because I cannot
be responsible for this anymore,
this $30 oversized baggage charge,
all this money I could have spent on books,
or flood insurance,
over & over I hear myself saying
you’ve done this again & again
treated me like our promises meant something,
like you’d held my hand when I was 19
& couldn’t handle my liquor, like you cared
that I was Black & you were Black & we both
saw the only cities that ever loved us back
blown apart,
& everything else is hard enough so
love shouldn’t be,
& as he is telling me he doesn’t understand,
I see a rivulet of water
whisper under the crack of the door,
then a stream begins to trickle
from the bathroom upstairs
& as I am saying
you’ve made me feel
like I’ve made a mistake
trusting you, which I cannot forgive,
the door bursts down,
the waters rush in, & the couch floats
out the window,
I nearly smack my head on the doorjamb on the way out,
an egret glides above us, & the conch are saying something
I cannot comprehend,
but it vibrates like memory,
& before I can panic
I listen,
& I sense I can get home from here,
that this too is my ocean,
& after everything, the memory
of the mango whiskey sour isn’t spoiled,
& all I learned about the law
is that it cannot tell you what is wrong
or right,
but water always knows
what it’s doing,
so next time it floods,
I am building my boat.
los hombres puertorriqueños no sirven
pa nada,
& I do not listen,
press my hair, book a flight,
buy a new red lipstick from Walgreens,
the first day I see him I wear my favorite white linen sundress,
accidentally flash a parking lot attendant,
at the bar before I meet him I read poetry,
order a mango whiskey sour,
pretend that this is my life, something I do
on a regular basis,
before I meet him, Lupe saying I had a dream,
that there’s another woman,
call me as soon as you get this
I can’t get the memory of you crying
out of my head, & I do not listen
to the voicemail,
I meet him in the parking lot of the bar,
& he bursts into a smile, takes my suitcase,
which I love because sometimes I get tired
of caring for myself,
he says, what are you working on
& do you remember
how we said
we’d get our ears pierced together, & you’ve always
been so capable,
how we were going to law school,
& this is Julissa, my girlfriend,
she’s meeting us for dinner,
& I think Ave María Purísima
he has done it again,
but I go to dinner, I laugh,
I allow myself all our memories,
because I know this will be the last time,
the three days are a blur, taxi cabs,
museums, long walks around the campus
where they study,
I eat,
sometimes vomit it up
because it’s too rich & this island’s
bacteria do not know me yet,
& the last night I sit him down,
on the too-small sterile AirBnB couch,
night had fallen outside,
he wants to make sure I have
cash for the cab to the airport,
& I ask who claims you,
I keep asking
& who do you claim because I cannot
be responsible for this anymore,
this $30 oversized baggage charge,
all this money I could have spent on books,
or flood insurance,
over & over I hear myself saying
you’ve done this again & again
treated me like our promises meant something,
like you’d held my hand when I was 19
& couldn’t handle my liquor, like you cared
that I was Black & you were Black & we both
saw the only cities that ever loved us back
blown apart,
& everything else is hard enough so
love shouldn’t be,
& as he is telling me he doesn’t understand,
I see a rivulet of water
whisper under the crack of the door,
then a stream begins to trickle
from the bathroom upstairs
& as I am saying
you’ve made me feel
like I’ve made a mistake
trusting you, which I cannot forgive,
the door bursts down,
the waters rush in, & the couch floats
out the window,
I nearly smack my head on the doorjamb on the way out,
an egret glides above us, & the conch are saying something
I cannot comprehend,
but it vibrates like memory,
& before I can panic
I listen,
& I sense I can get home from here,
that this too is my ocean,
& after everything, the memory
of the mango whiskey sour isn’t spoiled,
& all I learned about the law
is that it cannot tell you what is wrong
or right,
but water always knows
what it’s doing,
so next time it floods,
I am building my boat.
Irene Vázquez is a Black Mexican American poet, journalist, and editor from Houston, Texas. Irene graduated from Yale with a BA in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and English. Irene writes about Black feminist ecopoetics, placemaking, and futures. Irene’s works have appeared or are forthcoming in F(r)iction, the Texas Observer, and Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature and Culture, among others. Mostly Irene likes drinking coffee, impulse-buying books, and using the word capacious. Irene’s work can be found at www.irenevazquez.com.