Mireya Perez Bustillo

by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

Like rapid fish, the sleek tan bodies dive for coins they catch in their mouths tossed by tourists from the towering cruise-ship. Amid the iodine-impregnated air, the boys paddle out in fragile canoes in the blue-black Bay of Cartagena, where the sea sinks to slumber to clasp the city in an embrace. Here, where the largest slave market from Africa prospered in the 18^th century, where the viceroys once lived in the Old City, surrounded by six foot walls, pockmarked from cannonballs shot from the ship of Sir Francis Drake. Here, the alert watchtowers welcome Reyna and her family back home.

The smell of coffee beans rises from piled sacks on the pier as the ship reaches port in safety. Soon, Mami welcomes aboard Henya, her almond-colored old nanny. Over there is Tio Aquiles, Tias Marta, Clara, and Soledad, cousins Alicia, Pable, Mario, Sofia, Alberto and Eduardo. They have three hours to visit while half-stripped stevedores the same color as the coffee beans spilling on the docks unload the ship. With each embrace of another welcoming relative, Reyna notices Mami and Papi’s faces light up, their shoulders melt in ease. This is home. Nobody stumbles over their names. No one asks Reyna about the holes in her ears or why she wears earrings. The hugs, the kisses on the cheek, the familiar abrazo between men walking with their arms clasping each other’s shoulders, the women holding hands or walking arm in arm, the joking among the men, the women admiring Mami’s Fifth Avenue dress and shoes, Papi, being greeted by one of his former students now a customs official, the ease of hearing their name recognized. Here the people knew who they were.

 

 

by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

On this hill Golgotha
where it happened
They call it Church of the Holy Sepulchre
a sacred site closely guarded
The moment came to be at the very spot
even to touch it in a hole for my arm
But there were two lines side by side
I was asked to choose
which was the true spot
The eastern Orthodox one or
the Western Christian one
The split so clear
even on Golgotha

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo’s poetry and prose in English and Spanish appears in Caribbean Review, The Mom Egg, The Poetry Table Book: Anthology 2000-20024 among others. Her Latina coming-of-age novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press), is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

That dragon appeared too friendly
jutting its rounded tummy
beckoning her to drink
that hot afternoon past the crescent colonnade
of St. Peter’s seeking the soothness of gelato
walking past the Columbus Hotel with its crosses
of Malta
She had to touch his belly smiling at his spouted invitation.
that morning across the Tiber she had seen
the green-tinged Neptune step out to shake his trident at her tired of grappling with sea monsters
Beyond in that refreshing Borghese Garden
she faced reclining Paolina, Bonaparte’s sister
with the milky skin softened at baths by black retainers who carried her
to her carrara couch forever waiting
to be touched so inviting her jealous
husband kept the creator Canova from her
Here these marbled rooms favor rapes
in the center Dafne’s softness hardening
to crunchy bark escaping Apollo’s scorching
there an anguished Proserpine pulling
her smooth-well-fed thigh from the pinches
deep of that grasping savage
Beyond descending la scalinata della
Trinitá dei Monti to that half-sunk boat
Barcaccia Roman brides step water seeping
to spill in them flowing eggs
Nearby faintly clad Naidi entwine their bare asses
water spouting them in their phallic embrace
of lizard, seahorse, swan and water snake
In that equestrian oval of Navonna
Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Plate, the
Quatri Fiumi sprinkle tourists and street artists
releasing satyrs to leap about them
causing a poet to embrace a posing mime
a dancing clown to spin a musing stranger
while in that tiered Colosseum
a red-plumed centurion leaves his golden shield
to tango with a rapt visitor
the cracked forum below
crowning Capitoline Hill
a giant foot and fist anoint the heavens
the hushed crush of lovers joining
the wanton waters flowing

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo’s poetry and prose in English and Spanish appears in Caribbean Review, The Mom Egg, The Poetry Table Book: Anthology 2000-20024 among others. Her Latina coming-of-age novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press), is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

It did exist because that’s what I heard the most from Mami. She never cut anyone with her words. She’d quietly say “Tendrá sus razones!” It was like a note floating in the air, belonging there, not calling attention to itself. So it sounded normal to me. It’s only now that I understand it.

Papi in his Type A way would slam his fist on the table and let forth a stream of choice expletives regarding so and so and what they had done and what an outrage it was. Mami would listen patiently and say quietly “Tendrá sus razones!” It filtered in like a ray of light swallowing the darkness.

Where did it come from? Not from flightiness. It had such weight that I never heard anyone criticize it. There was a strength in this that elevated the perspective.

Now, I realize it was wisdom. She saw beyond and would make us feel it too!

It is deep in me now when the ugliness emerges from someone and I am called beyond that perspective thinking “Tendrá sus razones!”

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

                                                For Kamu Vicky Holt

                                                Hula Master Teacher

One could see
she was a Kamu Hula
achieving status in that dance
true to her teacher
chanting, weaving lau hala into baskets
shaping instruments mastering oli, Kahko, hula
to gain her five skirts for the umiki
fasting, purifying in the salt sea
rinsing with ginger to partake in the ailolo
consuming the fish or pig given her
savoring all parts
Climbing the hills for ilima, tilo
for her wristlets and anklets
gathering fresh water stones
her finger tips turn to castanets
listening to the war-like Wu’s whispers
learning healing cures for wounds and bones
Pleasing her teacher reciting from memory
the 2,000 lives of genealogy, knowing
the preparation of the hard gourds
to capture the ocean waves, the flying birds,
the whistling wind
She knows how to please Lolo, bringer of seeds
Extending her arms in front
Bunching her fingers in the flower gesture
Her bare feet in constant response
She is mana in motion

Mele is Hawaiian for combination of song, poetry, dance that expresses everything that they know about who they are

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo’s poetry searches for  that “other voice” reaching  through entrapment and oppression. Her work appears in Revista del Hada, Caribbean Review, Americas Review, The Poetry Table 2020-2024, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado was published in 2020 by Floricanto Press.

by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

It’s the warmth
I remember.
The lacy net of the froth
emerging from the dark mounds.

Afros, espuma intricate foam forming
immortal skin woven across Uranus’
far-flung manhood cut by Cronos
to feed the mounting waves.

That is what I was told.
But for me it was burbujas
breathing, bubbling into skin
foam – oam – Aum forming me
froth alive from sea dark
bob bobbing life from wave to wave.

The stir of the froth
light afrós surfacing
Aphro Aphrodite, Me
Mother of Eros, Goddess of foam.
Foam . . . I remember.

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo’s poetry searches for  that “other voice” reaching  through entrapment and oppression. Her work appears in Revista del Hada, Caribbean Review, Americas Review, The Poetry Table 2020-2024, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado was published in 2020 by Floricanto Press.

 

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

                                                                        Inch, Ireland

 

 

                                                            Eye   extended

                                                            pale   green   edges   of   sea   and   hill

                                                            where a giant’s fingers formed

                                                                        grassy mounds

                                                            whoosh of water

                                                            a   bee   slices   air

                                                            moos,   baas,   a dog’s tail wags

                                                            breeze   rustles   rushes,   fuschia,

                                                                        my hair

                                                            a white truck rounds the bend

                                                            to Playa Blanca   palms, palenqueras

                                                               fried fish

                                                            the bay of Cartagena to the left

                                                            where English pirates lurked

                                                            never   reaching

                                                            casa,   familia

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

 

 

 

 

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

…………For María Moreno Pérez and
…………Antonio Pérez Rincón

He arced his tongue to reach the fly
the only part he could move burrowed
in the camouflage of sand in the bed of the arroyo
soiling his tended grey softness embedding nettles.
In the hacienda Holanda by the river Tunjuelo
doña María ordered the baskets to be packed for market.
Pedro, the mayordomo, was sent to saddle the donkey.
In the bed by the creek he rolled in the scrub and played dead.
On the bridge by the river, don Antonio, impatiently
paced on his stallion, Cerezo.
Doña María in her riding skirt
held back her nervous mare, la Geisha
even the children were sent to search.
Running after the overseer, Pedrito, Carlitos,
Martita, Conchita, Pilarica and baby Tina
trampled lettuces and cabbages and played
“rabbit” biting off carrot heads. .
In the confusion baby Tina climbed
In the laundry basket falling asleep among
the camphored sheets and was not missed
‘til doña María said they’d have to take
the wagon and where was that bendito
animal and it was always the same story
every Thursday day of market.
Hearing the thump of the wheels
the donkey stretched shaking twigs
calling to him the great mastiff, Orlando,
who was in charge of misleading the search.

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

                        To: Paloma

It stood there guarding
…..that corner so close
…..to its boardwalk home
But the darkness kept me away
Maybe I peeked in once
But the dark waters
…..Pushed me out
I heard beauties swam there
But the waters made the darkness
…..fill me
But today when la familia said
they were going there
and the little one feeling
…..my fear
Said she’d hold my hand
I knew I would enter the waters

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.