By: Silvia La Rote
They almost killed the Taíno
but Dominicans are pomegranates and fowls.
“It’s funny this version of Spanish.”
Mulattos are rotting, brown in rotting
& beige is rotting too.
They claimed me inverted
apple. A bowl of seeds for skin. ‘Bijas’
less like sanskrit.
Medicine women say they restore all of the red
fucked hard out of this island.
This land once faced the cosmos
with pomegranates cut into infinite pieces,
clusters of maroons, of Moors, and existence. If it weren’t
for your rotting and skin, you wouldn’t be an apple to eat.
You bruise out like fruit,
And you are not like
the body of this island. The moist
muscle. There are parts of your life
homemade creams cannot restore. The parts that aren’t juice
in all its arteries.
Blush comes to skin like an open womb. Apples
in Eden, held many. I am dying
emboldened in the throat of this island,
golden in the husk of the bruised
and pomegranate.
Upon this land, the white men made ceremonies to hang
us red. Make you forbidden, on our own
on an island and all its rotting.
Here, tree branches hold onto forgotten fruit. To the dear
rotting deity, forgive me for coming to you in need, with dyed skin,
I have returned my limbs. Odd to gospel I ask for
a swallow,
me like a strange hanging
golden apple,
so that maybe you ripen
and will the pomegranates,
the body of people, of creatures caught
in a white country’s teeth,
and this death: a slow beating
muscle of forgotten island.
Silvia La Rote is a writer, organizer, and Political Science graduate
student. She was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, yet grew up
in New York City. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
You can find her ranting on Twitter at @SLaRote.
