Bio
Mary Anne Rojas is a Afro-Caribbean poet, essayist, daughter, sister, lover, and activist. She is a recent graduate from SUNY Oneonta with a bachelor’s of English and Africana & Latino Studies. Mary Anne is third of eight children and a survivor of seventeen schools and seven group homes. She has given workshops in various high schools, GED Programs, and JobCorp. She has taught in Ghana, Africa numerous times. Mary Anne has worked very close with the climate and social justice youth movement-organizing marches, vigils, readings and discussions. She is currently working on a chapbook, while hoping to be a M.A candidate for the University of Buffalo for the Cultural Caribbean Studies program. Mary Anne currently is the community manager intern for Power Poetry.
on Leaving.
You have been just in the right place for
The right moment, but leaving like this is
The last of my stuff from here. A here that
Was good enough for the olive autumn of
A kiss. Next kiss please. This is the last of
My stuff. And I am leaving. Quick, and be
Done. Done like close the curtains, and pack.
Leave all that shit behind and be leaving, like
Don’t touch me. Take the kids. Take the dream.
Take the music. Leave the bed. That suitcase
Is not big enough. You are leaving because
You are big enough. This right place for the
Right moment is small, not big enough. Leave.
You have been call your mother to talk about
It. Don’t call. No time. You are leaving. Leave.
You have been the day that already left with
The leaving. Why wait. Why cry. Take the
Tears. Cry over there. When you get there.
Call a new wind. Shed the kiss. Pick up your
Island ivory skin. Wear it like you leaving. Leave.
You have been here too long. Don’t wait for
Something not there. Leave. Pack. Pack. Pack.
You are the mop upside down girl. A tea bag on
The go girl. A pictureless wall girl. No family here
girl. You are tired no gas girl. You are leaving with
these fucking wings, and what girl. Leave. Forget
that love. that ain’t no love, let it leave. You have
here and no where else kitchen. You are mother
leaving on her way to mother. You get to mother
by leaving, after the left. You are no left over.
The knife that cuts the vegetables like constellations.
No questions asked, you have always been
Just that. Leave. Leave. You have been a syllable
In a mouth, hiding on a tongue, waiting to
Make sound. You have been no noise in this body.
You have been leaving for years. you have
Been the how to all the how he did it for better
Times than right now, like leaving. Keep leaving.
Don’t think. Leave like yeah you right, no food
Today. Leave today. Today leave. Today is leaving.
Leaving is today. You are today. Today is you.
Leave is today. Today is leave. Leave.
A Cafecito Memoir
Un cafecito to get by, y otro, y otro
Until your tongue is as black as coal
And your breath is a single ringlet of
Smoke—this is lesson number one
From Dominicanas stuck in one bedroom
Apartments, no men, with young sons
Fucking white girls to lose a shade of black.
Un cafecito for the Spanish jokes
That never translate in English, so
Our cries for help sit quietly in the
Walls of our mouths like dead compadres
And comadres photos on bare walls—we
Fold away our flags, mourn la patria y
Los sancochos waiting on the table.
Un cafecito while remembering my
Racist papa, con un machete after
A barefoot Haitian man—trujillo
Taught him well—la verguenza, so
We hide our black voodoo in backyard
Coffee cups, pretend that only Espanoles
Carved here. Un cafecito for la pobre
Vieja next door, whose children have
Left and never ate a single platano again—
Traded her for Americans and statistics.
Un cafecito for the memory of my blood,
The Red heat, la Guerra Civil con todo el
Cono de mi cuerpo. Un cafecito for my
Mama, whose story was left in Las Charcas de
Azua like a fucked up prayer and a dirty
River. Un cafecito for the Manhattan Sundays
Mama seeks widows with wrinkles to
Talk about los tiempos de antes when
Last names came with village and children.
Un cafecito, y otro, y otro for myself—
A descendant of Los Palos, flirtatious skin,
And fucked up Spanish.Un cafecito for the
First time I kissed a white man—how he
Left a poem swimming in my Caribbean
Breath—another cafecito to go to remember
The left behind lovers who still sit
On island drums and campesino love songs.
Un cafecito.
Y otro.
Y otro.