Clap When You Land(6)

I keep my eyes on the road as I walk past.

I hunch myself invisible. & then my favorite sight: the thicket of trees, & small path through them, then the embankment of well-worn dirt

that gives way to sun-bleached sand.

This nook is bookended by jagged cliffs on one side— that’s where the chamaquitos dive—& on the other is the stone wall that separates the neighborhood from the resort where Carline works.

I avoid the cliff; I am not here to leap & flip.

I am here because I need the current, moving & steady & never the same twice. Rolling clear & blue right where I left it.

My small oasis. Papi used to call it Camino’s Playa.

The water-babble rushes my worst thoughts quiet.

& I peel my denim shorts off, wade in, slicing through as if by doing this I could cut to strips my breaking heart.





Swimming might be the closest to flying a human being can get. There is something about your body displacing water in order to propel through space that makes you feel Godtouched. That makes me understand evolution, that we really must have crawled up from the sea.

My life’s passions

are all about water breaking, new life making, taking breath in wrinkled flesh.

Tía tells me I am probably the daughter of a water saint. All I know is I am most sure of my place in the world

with the water combing my kinks,

the cold biting into my skin, & my arms creating an arc over my head as I barrel through, & battle too these elements.





Papi learned to swim in this cut of the Caribbean Sea.

Used to jump off the cliffs into the waiting blue.

When I was younger, he gave me lessons,

scoffing at the placidness of the nearby resort pool.

“Buenooo, the best way to learn to swim,

is to jump into a body of water that wants to kill you.”

It used to be funny when he said that.

Most days, he would watch from the sand

as I tried to become a thing with fins.

Some days, he’d strip off his shirt,

show off his hairy chest & jiggly belly, & make me want to disown him on the spot.

The other barrio kids watched as “el Papi de Camino,”

the one who brought her cool shirts from the States, would slide off his old-man sandals & hat, walk to a little peak, & execute a dive, entering the water so smoothly it would make el Michael Phelps jealous.

In those moments, Papi became a lago creature, a human knife, a merman

from some ocean mythology—

so smooth I would search his neck for gills.

There was no current strong enough that could pull against his push.

I am convinced Papi was made up of more water than most.

The little kids would cheer & try to climb his back, so he would become a human surfboard too, & I would say, “Ese es mi papi; he is mine all mine.”

Papi learned to swim in water that wanted to kill him.

That ocean can’t be so different; shouldn’t be any different.

If any man could take a hard dive & come up breathing, it should be one who had practiced for just that his entire life.





My arms are tired, my joints screaming. I want to swim until I become this water. The world fades when you are under, & the ocean murmurs stay stay stay.

I swim out & come back, out & come back.

My lungs on fire. My arms shaking from the strain.

I could stop moving. I could just go.

I turn my head to breathe; a sharp whistle cuts me off midstroke.

Floating on my back, eyes opening to the darkening sky, I do not have to look to know the figure at the shore.

“It’s getting late, Camino. The beach is dangerous at night.”

El Cero. In some ways it seems like I always knew that Papi’s absence would bring baggage.

I tread upright in the water, trying to map out the fastest escape route to get by El Cero

without having to go near him. Vira Lata wags his tail at me.

I wish he was more inclined to bare his teeth.

Even from a distance, I see El Cero’s eyes dip down to where my nipples are cold as I tread.

& I know, the most dangerous thing on this beach has nothing to do with the dark.

The most dangerous thing

is standing right in front of me.





El Cero is not a man to be trusted. Or a man to show fear.

Without lowering my head, I calmly walk past him, snatch my shorts up, & suck my teeth in his direction.

Vira Lata must read my mood.

He comes over to rub against my leg, & I pat him once to let him know I’m all right.

I want nothing to do with the crowing roosters, or the viejos lighting candles, & Tía watching the news, & people crowding the patio,

& the prayer circles, & the watchful eyes, & the whispers about Papi being dead.

But whatever it is El Cero wants from me I know it will be worse

than the momentary discomfort at Tía’s house.

Because El Cero will attach conditions to his condolences.





Papi didn’t like that I’ve had boys flirting with me since I was twelve,

but he would have had to be around

to stop them, or to keep me

from flirting back. Plus he was never