By Sean Carrero
Watermark Boricua I hear the families drown from here. In his slippers and sleepwear full of pride, Papa irons my clothes. His body angles over the ironing board like an old guy with nothing but his thoughts to give. Meanwhile, the day’s last minutes drag like an old wooden kitchen chair across a dusty floor: Dusk peers over the houses around us until night’s bluest hour matches the inside of my eyelids. I cross my fingers and wish his god might hear his small prayers, like rain against the Cathedral Basilica St. John the Baptist. Homesick for an island covered in rain unincorporated, with its sovereignty on mute, white as breadfruit, bright as the waves that circle the small island, arms folded–– he snores from the couch.
Broken English With God, a bargain begins begrudgingly. Grief never ends; it doesn’t have to stop you. I betray the intuition in my bones and I lose one breath with each spoken syllable. My left-hand leads, while my right stops you–– often soft-spoken, calm before a storm my landscape broken, nothing but a storm–– I’ve been told more times what to talk about rather than how to talk my native tongue. I’ve been told blood is thicker than water. I get it. I will eat a plantain and my mouth will water; eat a plate of rice and beans, food ancestors ate, speak my father’s native language even though he never taught it to me, never had to teach me that blood is thicker than water.
Sean Carrero earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. He served as a reader for Bayou Magazine and received honorable mention for the Academy of American Poets’ Award. Carrero’s poetry can be found in Angel City Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, and North Dakota Quarterly.