in parentheses

Anyély Gómez-Dickerson is a Cuban-born immigrant poet. Her work appears in Latino Book Review, Acentos Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, West Trestle Review, and others. With a poetry degree from FIU, this Latina probes issues plaguing marginalized communities, while exploring her European, black, and Taína ancestry. Anyély resides in Hawaii.

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café negro, azúcar blanca & other cultivated sins

i feel the echoes of café negro between my thighs
& the singrown cries of azúcar blanca pumping in my breast
like machinery working to course correct the wrongs twisting
my mangled flesh, erasing my scars, scars known & unseen

sins like placenta, birthed in the cafetales & rice plantations,
beforesins visible by day or shamehidden under a moonless sky,
these sins of my flesh bound to the ashen bones of our dead, used
to season my defiant stew, so it boils everhot on history’s tongue

& when my eyes are the only light in the darkness & my mouth’s
flavors are lost in history’s shadows, i will again build the fire and
those new flames will cleanse my soiled flesh & i will once more
brew café negro & melt azúcar blanca into a bittersweet strength

so i never swallow their sins again

because i am like our tropical fruit trees—fertile—my belly
pregnant with possible impossibilities & like café negro—strong
its syrupy-thickness filling our wombs the way it filled theirs &
coursing through our bloodstream with a bottomless hope

like our conga & our clave—we are contagious—hips swaying
to sex & rhythm like the ancestors heartbeating drums, i am
transcendent—i am a salsa-stubborn soul forever here, present,
for i was always here & not discovered in some new frontier

like our plantain skin—resilient—my scars & wounds will heal
& like our simmering stews, i am patient—for my day will come
and in those new flames my flesh will be cleansed & i will brew
my café negro and melt azúcar blanca into a bittersweet strength

so i never swallow of their sins again

our bittersweet desperation food

always present, always burning our loud native tongues
because the fire’s always on too high, scorching our tomorrows

scorching the bitter & the sweet, at the door of starvation,
our stomachs bloated with false hope in this savory misery

scorching the spicy & the pungent and we smell pain rising,
dissipating into helplessness, sizzling, simmering, sautéing

scorching the citrusy sadness & the salty tears but desperation
food never goes to waste as we eat its burnt edges

and we grow strong despite its emptiness
nourished by something greater

we are the strangefruit

we are the seeds you did not plant
we are the roots that grew despite you
we are the trunk that still grows strong
we are the branches bearing your strangefruit
we are the abundant, resilient leaves
that cast the shade you rest under

you can try to cut us down
and find you can’t, you can try
to steal our bounty and we’ll just
yield more, you can swing your ax,
you can use your saw, and you’ll
find we will heal all wounds

because we are the seeds & the roots,
the branches & the fruit, the leaves,
the free shade you rest under and keep
to yourself, but we will grow ever strong
no matter what you do, no matter what you
don’t because we are where we belong

walking through tomorrow’s door

i hear the screams & terror rattling in my head
like rusty nails in a can—demented to think after
centuries of dead words my pleas can be heard
above the roar of this all-consuming fire burning
my flesh & idiolect, my tomorrows scorched, yet
mine is a willful onyx heart amid the ashes, mine,
a heart always-wanting, always ready to do more,
be more, until it’s barbie-pink-good-enough, but
often my strength is soiled with rage & my tired,
over-worked feet are caked in sand crystals that
sparkle with glints of hope as i walk in the sun &
i will realize i am more, i am the pearls & treasures
between my thighs & i grow strong & priceless &
polished in the shadows of this waterlogged shell
hoping to one day return across an ocean to a home
i’ve never seen, one that might love, instead of hate,
my dark skin but until then, i’m always-yielding,
always-adjusting, turning my music down, turning
my swag off, all in the (hoping) that i will someday
be seen, heard, until one day i will be loved back

& i am reminded as i walk through tomorrow’s door,
with my hands sweaty in this brutal heat, that I survived
the harsh iciness of a gray & violent wintertide & held
tight to my treasures, that i’ve seen to my history, my
endless oceans of pearls, for i am a mango lullaby &
a palm tree soul—i sway & nurture the queens & kings
within my hardened onyx heart & they in turn guide me
into an uncertain future & with my battered frame i will
walk through tomorrow’s door, i will arrive at that grand
table of monarchs & chiefs & my hands will no longer
shake, my shoulders will bear the strength of nations &
despite my tired black feet, waterlogged & soiled, i will
stand, a bright smile & i will feel as worthy, welcomed
with offerings of sofrito, coily hair, drum beats & feats
of engineering & i will be recognized & this time i won’t
be a resource mangled or whipped into profit margins,
this time, my value, noted, praised, protected, respected
& i will take my seat at Langston’s Table & no one will
dare say to me that i don’t belong when i walk through
tomorrow’s door, which for me, has always been closed

i am an undiscovered country/unconquered

discovered why? cus you say so,
because you had the audacity to
name me?

discovered how? cus back when you
wanted to own me and even today you still
need me?

discovered why? cus you think you found
me first, fooled into thinking there was no one
before you?

discovered how? cus you say so—why don’t
you think for a second & ask yourself who really
discovered who

discovered how? when it was you who tripped
over me, a happy accident for you, a deadly one
for me?

discovered how? owned when? how can you own
me when i was already found, already here
already me

nah, you gonna have to think again!
cus i am an undiscovered country
i am unconquered

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