Alegrías in Rabat

because I am afraid my steps would break this tile
with their zapateado –
because my feet will not listen if I say
shh or don’t –

I let them weave
fleeting choreographies on medina streets at night,
dance invisible threads
around dangling hooves and fluorescent lights and the paling heads of goats,
between heaping spices in burlap bags and men frying meat for the 7:30 rush,

rapid taconeo around steaming snails,
young boys and their shoe pyramids,
wheelbarrows of cactus fruit and watches,
pointed leather slippers and lingerie

until I am only an embroidered Mexican dress
and an oily fishtail braid
blurring with satin and wool djellabas in the hearts of North African cities,
my steps humming the paintings of Frida Kahlo,
lending movement to My Dress Hangs There

the soles of my feet sing that like me, she would have liked
being pulled to the inside of the storyteller’s circle,
out from between the bodies of men,
another woman who wants stories, too

I am asking my feet to find the compás
to blend the reggaeton in my waist,
the alegrías in my feet,
with the Arabic syllables in
Moroccan rap and Egyptian love songs

this city makes enough sound
that even my heels do not miss the nails of my flamenco shoes –
after all,
in sandals I am almost barefoot,
and I think perhaps that this
city will love me faster
if she knows the shape of my feet

Hummingbirds

beside this ocean,
(I am told that North Carolina is out there, somewhere straight ahead)
men shift their weight from rock to rock
steady their fishing poles in gray late afternoon light

not a beach for swimming,
Hind told me in her silvery voice, pointing out
cross-currents and waves like teacup shards

beside this ocean,
neither Hamza nor I
could speak this language yet
and he wanted only to toss pebbles,
pluck them from my palms

now it is sunset,
and just as I think,
maybe there are hummingbirds in these waves,
she says,
I never realized there was so much movement in water,
if that makes any sense

Mélange

Hind calls me mélange with a smile -

but on a crooked side street she likes my accent

and in the hammam she tells me I scrub like the Moroccans do

Her father and I cannot speak

in this house in the Ocean

but with gentle shriveled laughter like dried fruit

he taps the table

when the sheep in the loft looks at me

and points to the cages

when the yellow birds sing

He asks how many hours from

San Francisco to Rabat? and how do you say in Spanish? and he points,

borrego - borrego - borrego - until he gets it right

inhale of ammonia and livestock,

folded hands on stained tablecloth -

I think I have been here before

In the prayer room,

I speak French braids,

Hind's hair thick and oily with the

tangles of the medina,

Kerima's soft and clean from the

new apartment in Salé,

and Saida's is long, long, long and

falling from her head scarf in waves

and the women laugh when I am surprised

My feet are not dizzy

(as I thought they would be)

on the avenues of kings,

between Andalusian walls,

behind the mosque on the hill,

in the streams of the Turkish bath,

at the mouth of the Mediterranean

I say I am maghribiya,

watching tile explode like sun,

like feet dipping into freshwater,

unsure of what is at the core

of these concentric circles

Woman of the place where the sun sets,

I am migrating from west coast to west coast

and I liked that you believed me when I said

I've been here before

and I am

two blocks from the Atlantic

but still I forget, this is edge of the world

"The Crisis of Rainfed Crops"

what are you burning by the side of the road?

desert decorated with

blue plastic bags,

dainty twisted candy wrappers,

oily paper towels,

but cactus fruit flesh degrades in the dust

what carcinogens are seeping into this desert?

landless bodies,

hint of lead in the tajines by the side of the road

he called this the crisis of rainfed crops

but he did not say if this drought ever began

a poem and a song for departure

"Leap Before You Look" by W.H. Auden

The sense of danger must not disappear:

The way is certainly both short and steep,

However gradual it looks from here;

Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep

And break the by-laws any fool can keep;

It is not the convention but the fear

That has a tendency to disappear.

The worried efforts of the busy heap,

The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer

Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;

Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

The clothes that are considered right to wear

Will not be either sensible or cheap,

So long as we consent to live like sheep

And never mention those who disappear.

Much can be said for social savoir-faire,

But to rejoice when no one else is there

Is even harder than it is to weep;

No one is watching, but you have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep

Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear;

Although I love you, you will have to leap;

Our dream of safety has to disappear.

"No+llorá" by Bebe

He estao durmiendo a dos metros bajo tierra, y ahora he decidio dormir sobre la tierra.
He pasao tanto tiempo lamentando lo que no entendía, que ahora prefiero que me den la clara del día.

No, no, no, no
No más llorá

Empieza mi viaje en la carretera
Por fin camino sola
En mi casita con ruedas
El tiempo será pa mi lo que yo quiera que sea
Nunca un nudo, nunca un muro
Solo lo que yo quiera

Recorro montañas, desiertos, ciudades enteras,
No tengo ninguna prisa
Paro - donde quiera
La música que llevo
Será mi compañera
Ahh, ahh, ah

Aprendí a escuchar las noches
No pienso enterrar mis dolores
Pa que duelan menos
Voy a sacarlo de dentro
Cerca del mar
Pa que se lo lleve el viento

Hoy pa mi la burra grande
Ande que ande o no ande
Que la quiero para cocer
Al que me importune este cante
Que tengo yo en mi soledad, cientos de canciones
Tararea empeza y sin acaba
A punto, a punto de -
Que yo tengo yo en mi soledad
Cientos de canciones tarareas
Empeza y sin acaba, a punto, a punto de estallá.

Y algunas que nadie jamás quiero que comprenda
Porque son pa mi na ma,
Pa mi corazón
Pa mis pensamientos,
Pa mi reflexión,
Pa mi.

No se cuando volveré, no se donde llegaré,
No se que me encontraré, ni me importa, no, no

California Was Never Kansas

I can't tell anymore

where this valley ends and where my body begins

driving the length of California

I am shedding potentialities,

rejecting visions,

brushing off hallucinations from my lips and my waist.

not long until

skin ripping

from the contours of the buttes,

from this canyon like a womb

what they don't know is that

my body

is malleable, transplantable

and what they don't know is that

my body

absorbed this landscape,

acorn soup and antibodies,

poison oak immunity -

you would think I am native,

you would think I am what you are

they called me Mulan, asked if I am Puerto Rican,

but I am my mother's little brown Indian,

and I am told I can pass

even 6,000 miles away

our postman asked if I will be wearing only black.

the athletic goods store owner shouted that the problem is that all the Arabs have 10 children.

her husband told me the goddamn Arabs would never respect a Western woman.

he said, "You won't be in Kansas anymore, honey."

I cannot tell when I became from this place,

I cannot tell how many epithelial layers I share with these frightened men

who don't know that California was never Kansas.

these fearful men who don't know about sixteen years old and

"Wanna fuck?"

from a white man with a shaved head who thrust his penis at me and followed me in his car

these threatened men who don't know about early June,

a grin and a hand on my upper thigh as I walked a street in Hollywood in shorts

these men who cannot know

the relief of remembering that

my body will be a secret, for once -

I will bring with me

sycamores in a dancer's arched back,

the branches of oaks in the angles of flamenco arms,

creek water in my veins

but the men on the street will see only a castle tumbling into the sand,

honey eyes

coffee and cream skin

in a hammam,

a Moroccan woman will scrub every inch of me,

the caked and damaged cells

will drift down the plumbing of Rabat.

I will be raw and new.

I will tell my hair, "Listen! You cannot speak in that tone to the air."

at night, we will whisper to each other

about the things we've seen while hidden

and the things we've heard while quiet

la poesía de otros

I've spent a pretty big chunk of my life reading, listening to, watching, reciting, memorizing, and thinking about the poetry of others: the poetry of Rubén Darío in my father's declamaciones, the ballads of early 1990s Jewel albums, my mother's reservoir of questions, my father's garden, Pablo Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, the soft and dappled verses of Naomi Shihab Nye, the flamenco performances of my teachers. Yesterday the rich voice of Robin Thicke, today the new sounds of Arabic.

Sometimes, I think I am too caught up in theory, ten-page papers about 18th century literature, all-nighters, this assignment of 'critical analysis.' I remember the people who have told me that I try too hard, that I need to relax. But fortunately, I eventually remember that I'm caught up in all of this analysis because I do love la poesía de otros, because I want my own words to soothe and bite and bloom, and because to make strings of words that will do so, I have to explain the poetry of others first.

So here's to la poesía de otros. See my brief piece on the death of the wonderful human being Facundo Cabral here. See my (academic) analysis of W.H. Auden's poem "Spain 1937", which won second prize in the Emory Elliott Memorial Prize competition, here.