BIO
Lauren Licona is a poet of Puerto Rican and Honduran descent based in Boston, MA by way of Sanford, FL. Her work is featured or forthcoming in diode poetry journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere. She has performed on final stage at FEMSlam 2018 and represented Emerson College at CUPSI in 2019. She is currently working towards her BA in Writing, Literature, & Publishing at Emerson College. She can usually be found procrastinating in a library or dancing with friends at odd hours, and wants you to know that kindness is a powerful act of resistance. You can also catch her on twitter @douxrose_
an anti-colonial response (to be read in conversation)
(erasure of the Jones–Shafroth Act of 1917 )
rebellion, insurrection, the necessity for such shall exist.
nothing contained in this act shall be construed to the safety of
involuntary servitude.
no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of the people.
preference shall forever be allowed.
no political or religious support for the United States shall
be required,
no public appropriated and used directly
or indirectly, for
the benefit or support of
any system.
it shall be unlawful to manufacture, sell, or give away,
laborers or mechanics on behalf of the government.
no indebtedness of Puerto
Rico shall be authorized
or
allowed.
all citizens all natives of Puerto Rico are hereby declared permanent.
the island may not be availed.
her harbors, bridges, houses, water, powers,
highways, unnavigable streams
docks, slips, reclaimed lands,
and all public
lands and
buildings,
the facts of her birth,
shall have authority
subject to respect.
flashbulb memory of a girl and her abuela on the gulf of mexico, st. petersburg, florida, 2009
my grandmother holds my ankles upright /
while the rest of my body whelms itself into the
atlantic / the tide makes
collision against her waist / i hold my breath / there was a time /
before
expatriation / when mayagüez was not yet an ebbing in her chest / when she
would
come to the shore / to watch her brothers skin fish on the dock for a
handful of cuarteles /
and the men who slept beneath the pier / a congregation
/ their church made from drink
and canción / guiros and gritos spilling out
over sunbleached coquina / as the waves / beat
against her city of rum and bone
meal / before she stepped onto the
border / unborn / and
a new name was christened / from the souse on her
back / now / an american girl and her
grandmother stand in the gulf / and the sea is just a mirror i half myself into
/ my palms
scrape the sand for burrowed dinero / my fingers reach out /to bless
the spire of a conch
shell / i do this until my vision blurs / and my lungs
wring into themselves / if there is
anything the women in my family know / it
is the strain of reaching / what i mean is / my
grandmother stretched herself
across the caribbean / so her children could grasp the idea /
of a love
unconquered / even now / she releases her hold on my legs / pulls me to the
surface / i show her two fists / clenched and full of writhing life / sand
dollars / conchitas /
split open mollusks / a girl / with no claim and no
country / i understand / this is the
closest i will ever come / to birthright / she grins wide / the same gap
between our front
teeth / a drawbridge splitting / and what a miraculous thing
it is / to share distance / she
tells me / “ay, nena / i thought you found something / worth leaving
this world behind /
how long you spent / holding your breath.” / and i wish i
could tell her / i did / instead / i
offer her this abundance / and we laugh /
half-sunk in a marginal sea.