El Huracán/ The Hurricane
Huracán Huracán
Hurricane Hurricane
Tin roof falling
Las Palmas bending
Towards the sea
Towards the coquis
Dancing Flor de maga
Petals; unconscious
Sifting through the grapefruits
Power donde
Not with our people
Ravishing; hungry; torrential
La niña on the dirt
Resist, puños up
La Resistencia
Limbs surrounded plummet
On rivers collapsed
En Jayuya, Puerto Rico
Little family huddled
Pouring fists back in
Wading the flood waters
Tracing hectic lineage
Whipping sounds from bodies
From ancestors, vientos, and souls
Rebuilding while in chains
Resisting while in plague
Reliving in our grief
Epi genetic, seethe
There are hauntings here
Minus El Huracán
Climate change exacerbates
Vulnerabilities
In our small island
We will remain
Patterns swaying
Decaying the rest of the quenepas
They saw us in hurricanes
But we remain in Zephyr
Repelling
El Rio/ The River
Mouth contorting
Rising from the clouds
They say the little Puerto Rican Girl
Never made it out
Grandma tells
The story
For all of us to hear
Never seek the river
After the tormenta
Betraying ecosystem
Swallowing even its kind
Levels rising
Not at the mouth
Not the bellybutton
Its somewhere near
By the Tortugas
Before the Boa
Is the River
She whispers
“El rio es traicionero”
La Playa/ The Beach
Organized we
The Puerto Rican sea
Gentrification
Isolating
Vindication
Fight for turquoise water
and the bioluminescent bays
and even the boxed jellies in December
The privatizations rains
Of our beaches
Illegal
But heavily breathing and very alive
We see your buck tooth and blue eyes
We see your white picket fences and disguise
Your outright fat lies
We see the excavators moving
Land they met last year
We met this land
Through our Taino ancestors
And the pains they had to bear
Leave your cranes
In our trenches
But leave the Playa ALONE
Please
Just leave our people a home
__________________________
My name is Mydalis Vera. I am a Puerto Rican writer with an MFA in Nonfiction Creative Writing from Bay Path University. My work includes a self-published collection titled Warrior Guerrera Sayings and Affirmations para las Guerreras and a poetry chapbook, Warrior Guerreras, Broken Hearts, Burning Suns. I am also the author of Guerrera Writer Journal. My writing has been featured in various publications such as Multiplicity Magazine, The Nasiona, the Latino Book Review, and the MultiCreative Wisdom Anthology. I am also active in the writing community, hosting a free writing group every Monday night from 7 PM to 8 PM. More about my work can be found on my website and Substack.