Tag: identity
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Jonathan Moya vs Jonathan Moya
Jonathan Moya vs. Jonathan MoyaI know this will happen one day—I walk into a diner with my wife,during the Costa Rican stopoverof our South American cruise.The waiter says, “Table for Moya?”I say, “Yes.”Another man stands up.He says, “Si, aqui.”We stare at each other.Same first name.Same last name.Same spelling.He has two middle names.I have just one.Different…
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Supermoon
My wife was still doing her hair and makeup before our meal at Cocina Abierta—a seven-course tasting circled in red weeks ago—a promise we weren’t sure we’d keep.So my brother and I filled the hour wandering the narrow streets of the city rooted in my mother’s heart and past, San Juan—where I’ve paused—for now—before our…
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Snow Globes
Snow Globes There are tableaux we make out of dinner plates, a child’s lost sock,a father’s coat on the bannister,the silent, stuck smile of a motherstirring steam into endless errands—windows frosting into the same patterns,altars of dusty decades accumulating unnoticed in twice told stories, reupholstered sorrows,all the slow cyclones of repetition caught under glasswaiting for…
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America is…………
America Is…….**America Is………… The Financial District crosswalks that become piano keys in the syncopated hustle of the pedestrian light The redheaded clown in a Raggedy Ann dress holding five red balloons, heading to a gig in Hell’s Kitchen, noticing rainbow-striped reflections in the plate glass of a bank lobby window The shadow woman who walks…
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Where She Left It
Where She Left ItOn the side of the highway, abandoned where the wild grass ends, a child’s shoe— blue, with a slight heel, broken on the left side, rhinestone anklet torn from its support— the victim of a wobbly learning step, its twin nowhere near.I circled it in reverence, looking for some sort of forensic…
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Answers to the questions you always wanted to ask the departed:
Answers to the questions you always wanted to ask the departed:(A counter poem with answers after Ellen Bass Inquest)https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/inquest-ellen-bass-poemShe loved apricots, not figs. Olives reminded her of saltwater, and the yellow irises—those were never hers. Her feet stayed clean because she refused to walk barefoot, never trusted the ground, never trusted much at all. She…
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Between the Waves
Between the Waves There was never a single border, only the shifting tide of language, guavas glowing in the heat, the churn of Spanglish rolling in before the tide could pull it back. At the checkout line, the cashier asks, “Paper or plastic?”—so simple, so sharp. I glance at Mamá, but her words stick, caught…
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The Nacre of Survival
**The Nacre of Survival** After all the operations, after the slow unraveling, I trace the shimmer left behind, a pearl forming in the absence of what was— the weight of my steps lighter, not in grace, but in uncertainty mixed with hope. I do not run anymore Yet, I watch Tom Cruise sprint, sprint— limbs…
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Rogue Brother
My brother is an angler devoted to the stream that pools around long boots, making the slow cast that gently whips and ripples the surface with a reel that knows the proper weight of the scales below.Gone are the days when he fished Crandon Pier while sitting on an overturned paint bucket with a cheap…
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Once Upon a Time: Miami
(after Richard Blanco)I barely remember myself in the sway of these palms Fifty years on I’ve lost the language of these breezesalong with almost all my childhood Spanish.Good Morning, Buenas Dias runs into Good Night, Buenas Noches. I can no longer live out the passion of my youthwithout cancer intruding some melancholy lyrics.On the good…