Princesa Gomez

Red lunares

I never had red lunares before I met you.

The only ones I had were dark brown 

puntitos occasionally painted on my skin,

As if an artist meticulously placed each one 

exactly how they wanted it to look, exactly where they wanted it.

You, on the other hand, have so many. Your skin could have been a map to the night sky.

The café au lait spot on your back 

a bursting nebula, 

the raised and flat and many shaped moles and beauty marks 

adorning you like planets and constellations of all colors.

The skin tag on your back, 

the little red lunares, 

the brown flat ones that camouflaged in the hidden places that 

only the most ardent of lovers would find, 

the stretch marks traveling down your hip, 

and the handsome crow’s feet at your eyes 

on the rare occasion you smiled – your most beautiful skin 

so expressive and gorgeous and varied. 

Yours was a loud and boisterous painter’s masterpiece, 

as vibrant and gregarious 

as you are quiet, pensive, 

and introverted. 

Now that you are so far away from me, 

I’ve found those same 

little red lunares that you had 

dusting my body. 

As if some of your paint splattered onto my canvas. 

They hide against the reddish pink 

undertones of my warm beige brown, 

but they’re there. 

On my arms, 

my breast, 

my thighs, 

and feet. 

Perhaps 

you managed to leave your mark on 

the parts of me you once would kiss 

with fervor and adoration. 

Sopa y Seco

Once, when I was over for dinner, Tu Padre asked me:

“¿Como es que los dominicanos dicen sopa y seco?”

I paused, wondering if he knew something I didn’t, until I remembered the fascination Mamí and I shared

over the phone when I told her about this term.

And I remembered all the meals I’d had where no such distinction was ever made.

So I turned to Tu Padre and said plainly:

“Comida.”

He laughed in his way that he did with me, before I explained our way of eating, and he looked on at me

with curious fascination

not unlike a separate time, when your sister asked how we had our food, and how it tastes more savory

than theirs even though we don’t use guiso.

I told her that our guiso is sofrito, that vibrant green ambrosia, and that we cook it with the food, we don’t serve it as a relish.

***

Guiso, Mamí said this week, is guisado. But I said no, what she has in the fridge is a guiso, even though

she keeps calling it pico de gallo.

She asks what country says that, and I shove my embarrassment aside as I say, like I always do now,

Colombia. I feel silly knowing so intently all these little details.

But it’s easier to blame my slip-up on my perpetual mixing of dialects than to say all the ways that I know

this color and acidity and sofrito-esque flavor.

So I joke about my linguistic ineptitude rather than tell her about spooning guiso onto my rice at Lalo’s or

the time tu Mellizo made empanadas in late summer

and how the corn flour was fried to crips perfection, the rice and meat were perfectly juicy, the contents

dripping into the guisito as we lapped up every last morsel.