Home / Road, and: Poem for the End of the World (Bees & Things & Flowers), and: Arroz Con Dulce, and: Augur

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• Home / Road, and: Poem for the End of the World (Bees & Things & Flowers), and: Arroz Con Dulce, and: Augur
• Amy M. Alvarez (bio)

HOME / ROAD

I find myself saying I wantto go home aloud sometimes,as I drive my aging silverSoul after work, decidingwhether to stop for someuniversity event or presstoward home. Home sometimesmeaning Queens or Harlem—old haunts where I am notthe object of attention; sometimes,I mean Tampa with a rainbowof cousins playing dominoes likeour abuelo taught us; or home asin a table of Black people in mycurrent state—

West Virginia—sometimes youare home—your hills green likethe hills of my mother & father'sisland homelands, rainwaterpouring through sandstone chasms.When I say home,

I mean fungi, ash, or ether, ormaybe the hollow of my lover'sneck, the tender center of his chest,& maybe by his chest I mean heavenas I imagine it: spring rain floodingthe roads, wind telling us arrival& departure, sheets tangled, warm,succulent bud of joy at the centerof my self. [End Page 20]

POEM FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (BEES & THINGS & FLOWERS)

You asked what I'd write if the worldwere ending. I don't know that I could

find words at that moment, but sincewe're nearing the end anyhow, all I

can think to say is this: there were purpleand yellow flowers, a season called spring.

There were small fuzzy, flying things—bees—who came to beds of these flowers

to feast on their nectar because they couldsee better when shades of gold and violet

wove together. Can you imagine, I wouldwrite, words already smoldering on the page,

we had all that—flowers and bees and spring—can you imagine? [End Page 21]

ARROZ CON DULCE

1

A month and a day aftermy abuelita left us to cleanup old squabbles, I foundscrawled notes from our lasttime together in her pink houseon Bougainvillea Ave.

When I asked her favoriterecipes that day, she told meabout the pasteles she madefor the judges and abogadosin Ponce. Some of them askedfor raisins! She added themeven though the idea of raisinsin the savory and sour masawas unthinkable.

She told me about her arrozcon dulce: rice soaked overnight,cloves added early and removedbefore serving, crema de coco,and raisins (proper in this dish).

2

The last time I saw my abuelaalive, she lived in myaunt's blue house on the otherside of the peninsula. She hadfallen and hit her head that dayand was caught in a mental mobiusloop describing how to assemblepapas rellenas: se pone se pone se poneshe repeated, one hand holdingimagined potato, the otherdescending with conceptual meat,even after I filled in her blanks [End Page 22] in Spanglish: la carne con sofritoy achiote oil, verdad, grandma?

She asked who my brothers werewhen she saw them in a picture.My brothers and I, the absentcousins for so many years,growing up with our West Indianmothers, far from our Puerto Ricanfamily in Florida. This one looks justlike your father, she said, pointingat my brother Aponte in a picturewith his young children who willnever taste her cooking.

3

This Appalachian spring, allof its ramps, fiddleheads,and morels, the studentssitting with me on the grassreading poetry, the swollenwaters bursting into fall,I would give it up, suffera thousand winters for myabuela alive again, her bodybountiful and tall, humminghymns in her humid kitchen,her love made visible in bowlsof arroz con dulce. [End Page 23]

AUGUR

A red-tailed hawkflew twice acrossmy path today. Myfriend Jada says tolook into the messagesof birds, how & where they fly.

I don't know how to divine thisfeathered message, but websitesI search say hawks are signsof conflict or luck or warning orprotection.

Maybe my hawk was hungry andlooking for snakes or squirrels.Maybe it's just the...