Photogram and poem made in collaboration with Anabel Vázquez Rodriguez, regarding Hong Kong and Puerto Rico as islands in struggles with their mainlands.
where water belongs // 團結: a group of knots // agridulce liminalidad
we refer to the atlantic
and to the pacific
as if separate bodies when in reality
like the salty fluid that trickles from our eyes
and that we enjoy below our bellies*
there are no lines there is no man
to designate where water belongs
a small island yellowing at the mouth
of the pearl river delta. on a map
hong kong looks like a cunt ※
always made for extraction
borinquén archipiélago de esmeralda plástica
la del encanto mordaza que no calla
llena de rabia organizada que afila
mientras el guaraguao grita ¡gringxs go home!
dentro de este gran mar oroborus
sirenxs de apoyo mutuo con armadura
corazón enviando señales de vuelo chiringa negra
dos colonias que bailan la agridulce liminalidad
soldadas en aguas profundas de un halcón
las dos alas por todo alto volando bajito
two islands waving like kites tethered
to their mainlands
a note slipped under a door
a crumpled message passed from cell to cell †
hand to hand is called a kite-
words travel even when we can’t
*Milan Kundera, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”
※ Tiffany Sia, “Too Salty Too Wet”
† Saidiya Hartman, “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments”
