Slapping Bones
by Ines P. Rivera-Prosdocimi
For Julian Ramirez
In a house whose writer disappeared,
cluttered by clothes hangers,
pads he’d stitch into shoulder seams
& the roosters his boss nurtured
for the cockfights, he’d tell me stories
of el campo, where the flamboyans
sat apart & cane stretched out for miles.
Backroads where you could breathe,
bachata’s beat like a distant drum
leading you. The pain in those songs
felt good that last night we were innocent.
He made a cat a paper cup shirt.
I pushed the cuticles of his left foot,
cutting nails that’d snap—and—fly.
Frank Reyes sang Vine a decirte adios
when we took our dominos out,
smacked one after the other
on the concrete floor, looking out
for the double-six promising to come;
each black pip that stared us in the face.
(2019)
Used by permission of the author.