I’m walking around this art museum dedicated to nuestra gente wondering what it means. To claim a culture as one’s own. To belong. These are not the same thing, are they? No se, pero I do know that when the museum employees talk to me I hear the coquí sing, and it’s all I can do not to beg them por favor continúa. Tiene la sangre, me dicen, y lo creo. Their Spanish lilt of bacalao and salt. They might as well be singing, “sana sana, nena” porque all I can smell is mi abuelita: garlic and distinctly latina perfume. All I can do is wiggle my hips a la bomba. All I can do is leando: de las bregas, los revolucionarios… y que fuerte son nuestra gente. I looked in the gift shop for baby clothes. Or anything que dice “Wepa” porque yo necesito más wepa these days. Necesito más de la raza. De mi gente. I sit in the gallery surrounded, soaking it in, and wonder. About belonging. Un empleado cantando in another gallery to light my heart. His bouyant lilt wafting through the rooms to remind me of el amor de vida that is solamente de la isla verde. Y como mi corazón lo necesita.

sweet plums spilling out a forgotten tree. they’re happy to pass even if it’s a D. as I age I’m realizing there’s no finish line. as I age I wonder about time. apples go thwump in the quiet of night. from society’s corners they’re itchin’ to fight. no matter where it’s planted you’ll reap what you sow. no matter where you find yourself you can grow.

We were hiking back to camp when it happened. I only wanted to keep going but he bade me sit down to talk it out. I had wanted to be afraid and then I wanted to cope aloud and he made me stop walking to do that. This wasn’t about our sport, this was personal to me. This was a yet different fear beyond what I’d already faced alongside him. Because we had though, I reluctantly sat down. I couldn’t look at him at first, or think, so great was the mess in my head. He waited. By and by, I talked. Around all of it. I said everything I felt like saying. I looked at the valleys close and distant, the further mountains, the wide blue sky. As I reacquainted myself with the desert calm, a shadow startled me not ten feet to my right. The raven who’d cast it swooped down in front of us, lilting on the breeze. I nearly cried then. “That’s for you,” he said, and the raven played on. With rarely a wingbeat, a wide black bird casually careening on draughts of dry, warm wind just beyond our reach from the canyon rim. The raven stayed close quite a while. Let this die now, she said to me. I left it soaring over those many valleys off toward the far mountains under our wide blue sky.

you’re up against a wall of rock on four toes and several fingertips, further from the ground than you’d care to notice, relieved to take a breath as you steady for the next reach. looking for holds is like looking for seashells: most that look good are incomplete, not quite enough. natural formations. you squander energy, myriad muscles tensed, exploring one hand at a time. later your buddies will say you think too much. now, right now, you have to breathe again. sometimes a little spring is necessary. a hop from three points so that your fourth can make a distance. up a natural wall. this isn’t the fear you had expected. there was a climber who told you that her first several descents had her vomiting as she reached the ground again. that isn’t what you’re going for, but it might not matter. breathe. your most ancient knowledge is telling your body of danger. that is not this moment, no matter the distance between you and an idea of safety. the problem is in right front of you. you’re breathing. you’ve got this. now. you’re here of only your own strength. it’s not too far. reach.

No more deep gulping yawns: autumn air has a bite. That moon’s called a Harvest cuz it works through the night. Going slow is the fastest way to lose balance. You’ve gotta move quick, quit wasting your talents. They notice and wonder and participate. They slump in all high, they’re showing up late. He used the n-word again and didn’t like what came next. We’re not gonna win but we’re giving our best. It’s one old flame that soothes and another that burns. You’re choosing to lose cuz you just want a turn. At sunrise each morning you’ll try, try again. If you’re running it’s into the arms of a friend.

All I need is the whole thing, all of the time I can make. Not forever but for now—I swear, my soul to take. They’ll whisper the secret and I’ll never tell. How did you do that all by yourself. I’m going to use it all none to waste. It’s not lost but feels gone, nothing taking that place. He reached into the tree and several plums fell. They aren’t getting better but they’re getting well.