6 LYNETTE CINTRON


"Open the door"
"No other door!"

Creak of rusted bolts
Bluish light
Smell of salt and Sargasso
Of brick and cooling concrete
Smokiness of a neighbor's incense

Like ripening guava and guanabana
Wind from the Atlantic
Curls a top this hill... this home....this roof
On cobblestone 208.

You swing on a hammock
Eat raspberries
And grapes
Dream sweet coconut dreams
And then...
It reaches us...
tun tfin... un belen
 tun tun... Cortijo... tun timn Ismael...

Picked up by the ocean's wind
By way of the bay's breeze
Carried up from the plaza
Where our town remembers
The bomba from Loiza Aldea and San Ant6n
The beat in our blood...

I dance barefoot around you.


Lynette Cintr6n