for those that don't know......

boricua sestina

There was a scream in Lares
heard 30 years before Nelson Miles
and his army from America
caused the Boricuas
to create la isla in the South Bronx
and El Barrio

We hear those same screams on corners of El Barrio
Revolutionary descendants of Lares
fighting cold winters of single parent welfare in the South Bronx
A foreign concept to Nelson Miles
because as of 1898 Boricuas
belonged to America

But America
never belonged to us so we made El Barrio
A concrete isla with streetlights as palm trees and Boricuas
eat tostones play dominos in front of bodegas and talk bochinche of Lares
looking at la hara like Nelson Miles
What would have happened had he landed in Hunts Point in the South Bronx?

The South Bronx
would have offered him cocotazos - the United States of Ghetto America’
way of greeting strangers like Nelson Miles
who try to put McDonald’s and Starbucks in El Barrio
Don’t they understand that café con leche tastes better from Lares?
Nobody can commercialize mountain jibaro coffee made by Boricuas

Boricuas
are the rainbow people and one pot of gold lands in the South Bronx
another in Chicago and wherever else Chango echoes Lares’
scream It falls on deaf ears in America
where they don’t see that El Barrio
is a product of Nelson Miles

and July 25th belonged to Nelson Miles
bringing good will for the best interests of Boricuas
Ask the viejo in front of GoodWill in El Barrio
if he remembers how he got there and he’ll say he lived in the South Bronx
went to Korea because of America
and had to burn down straw huts while getting visions of flaming bohios in Lares

He may have not heard the scream of Lares or of Nelson Miles
but he said in between in sincere gulps of 151 that America has no place for Boricuas
and his boat ride has only led to a daily 6 train ride between the South Bronx and El Barrio

copyright 2004 anthony morales