Yemaya’s Pantoum by Luivette Resto

BIO

Luivette Resto, a mother, teacher, poet, and Wonder Woman fanatic, was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. Her two books of poetry Unfinished Portrait and Ascension have been published by Tía Chucha Press. She is a CantoMundo fellow. Some of her latest work can be read in Cultural Weekly and in a forthcoming anthology titled What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump published by Northwestern University Press. Currently, she lives in the Los Angeles area with her three revolutionaries.

When I visited the ocean

she told me 

I was strong as her currents, 

unpredictable like the tides.

 

She told me

brujas on blood moon nights 

unpredictable like the tides

gather by her recursive feet 

 

with a hand full of silvers coins because brujas 

know how to worship her coastline like an altar

and stand by her recursive feet 

as the perigean tide allows a kiss. 

 

To worship her coastline like an altar

full of intention while gray waves move 

like a plena as the tide allows a kiss

entropically move from me to you.


With full intention, waves glide

across our feet as her answers

whisper from me to you 

strong as her currents.

 

The Acentos Review 2019