Jane Alberdeston Coralin   TAINA DREAMS (let's hear it for Cristobal Colón) The children give themselves to the ground their chests whistling like the wind We did nothing to stop their singing Fed their dreams the white meat of the batata, manipulate their mouths open watch them eat the pulp the color of our nightmare's skin the worn prepare the soil for graves our throats rattling like gourds with the names of our fallen forebearers the organs of their language held within our molars like flecks of gold Kathy Keler Late Bloomer II 1999, 24" x 17", computer print with varnishes more work by Kathy Keler       PESCADOR Hijo de la tierra pescador puertoriqueño con tu cara de taro debajo del pie del sol subes la falda de los mares buscando la boca de tu nuevo Dios     ROSA'S BEAUTY it was a ritual one Saturday a month storm or shine, broke or not Mami would drive us to Rosa's Beauty near la 17 in Santurce where a barrio's history is the mad work of knives and men but there we were on our way to get our hair done, to be called chinitas straighten out kinks we couldn't correct in our everyday couldn't make family better, bring fathers back home but we could look real nice like real Puerto Rican girls should it was like walking into your girlfriend's house, Rosa's, with it lime green tile floor, slippery with black hair clippings under a forest of high-heeled, flip-flopped women spitting fire in Dominican Spanish, frying pan hot, ají in each word room aflame with their lipstick all talking the same bochinche about who was doing who and who got deported off the island and what puta cut what cabrón five hours amid smoke and ash lotions and dyes tinting the air scissors and mouths moving to any Mambo radio tune and by then my head was burning alive with the power of the relaxer unable to wash it out for fear of staying black and we all knew that's what we didn't want we wanted to shake our hair (since we couldn't shake our skin) loosen wool into Chinese silk smooth flat and fit for feathering on Antillen days under salt and sun ruining a girl's reputation for looking right and good now I'm thirty and a box of Dark and Lovely is a stinging memory of a young girl's addiction dishonoring the women born of the coastline mother, grandmother, before even them women swimming seas, bearing storms, fighting misery with hair stronger than the ropes that held them     EN EL BARRIO OBRERO Santurce, Puerto Rico ..........The old neighborhood Uncle Abraham called it driving past, his face twisted like a hitman's first day .........Why'd you take this route, I never go this way Teté grumbles from the backseat tight-knuckled, readied for the riot of addicts and thieves snatching away the last three sweaty dollars she owned .........It wasn't always like this Abuela whispers like someone who's lived in Tidewater too long .........Blame it on those Dominicans Uncle spouts, threee impressionables turning our heads to stare out a car window's hush at the barrio's new migrants still salt-wet with their crossing their faces shiny as freshwater pearls .........We'll be home soon, Mami murmurs in her voice, not the statement but the idea while I, chewing the inconsolable meat of the coconut, return to the work of being twelve: on summer vacation, clam cool, bored with the view, their Barrio Obrero stewing in the sun .........like bottles of fermenting maví     REBELLION Summer 1999 We wait for .........when it pours... Sleep folds my partner his flesh a beach of sweat and muse his eyes fanning delirium, a broken A/C we transmit our heat like flintstone the sky drys out like a bad perm I think of body bags I have faith in a shower's alchemy in the newsroom, the Devil's impatient progress continues Farmers slip tongues through cracks in destiny asphalt undulates like a Mexican grave redwoods meet their maker .........Chicago liens another retiree I dream of somewhere in Siberia reach for the coolest part of you hot little hand on a lover's belly busy as a looter's fingers swift as televised rebellion   A DC resident since 1995, puertoriquena Jane Alberdeston Coralin is a fellow of Cave Canem, a writer's workshop for poets of African descent, and a recipient of a District of Columbia Arts and Humanities Grant. She has most recently been published by the Paterson Literary Review (PCCC-NJ), Bilingual Review (Arizona State University), and Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature (John Wiley & Sons). Her poetry collections, Waters of My Thirst and The Afrotaina Dreams, are still in circulation. In the upcoming year, she will begin her graduate studies in upstate NY. Published in Volume 2, Number 3, Summer 2001.   To read more by this author: Cloaked Silences in Reetika Vazirani's Poetry by Jane Alberdeston Coralin (The Profiles Issue) Jane Alberdeston Coralin: It's Your Mug Anniversary Issue