Examination After the Panic Attack: Mosaic
Jason says resilience is more or less
genetic for us, I more or less. I settle
the tie by cracking myself into seeds of a lesser body. I moor
myself to the garden’s bed, I shake that more into a puddle of sweat there it is,
a reflection of my god is that enough water for any person to get drunk on
and call itself a Moor and now I am a lost parade in El Barrio with its blood
balloons draining into the sky. What a trick I am I want
to bring all of this to the party. I call the Latina therapist Jason recommends she asks
if I’ve ever been to therapy before, I say no, she chuckles
Well, it’s necessary. I laugh the way my mother laughs in front of white people
I caress my throat, pet until it is a begging, my Adam’s apple
at its first willow, my hands cocoon it’s worrisome indents, the places
where it has forgotten to quench itself. I have 6,000 fingers,
they are brown and indigenous, but never enough.
They do not cover my face at work, in public my students say I am not
a real person of color, I want this Latina therapist to tell them
they are wrong. They are made of glass, they are slowly erecting
a cathedral on my back, it is St. Brendan’s church, where I was raised.
The stained glass is a mestizo of light how they play tricks
on the eyes call themselves many colors but you see only
one.
Noel Quiñones
Noel Quiñones is an AfroBoricua writer, performer and educator born and raised in the Bronx. His work has appeared in Pilgrimage Press, Kweli Journal, Winter Tangerine Review, Asymptote and elsewhere.
