By Carolyn Roque
After Ashley M. Jones’ “Ingredient List: Black Girl”
guava for blood, a body that can sway its hips to salsa, comebacks quicker than the beat, hands that shuffle the dominoes like it’s second nature, a tongue that rolls its r’s with relentless declarations, azúcar swirled into Bustelo coffee, desire to be better than the island left behind, salt water, mango-stricken breath, José Martí poetry dripping from the cracks of red-hot lips, eyes that reflect vibrant colors of what used to be, a love lost between land and sea.
