The Puerto Rican Literature Project

oh yes little black girl               sell me your flesh for a kiss

for a piece of paper claiming you were born

sell me your mollusk depths

your salty things            sell them to me

for the grease on the grills waiting for you

for the mops drying out the sea in all the houses

like graves

(the marble, little black girl)

and the hairs cut and dyed in firefighter red

the cooing of helicopters in the middle of the ocean

sell it all to me in that flesh

such a body of yours

such a bait for sharks

such a tigress

your flesh revealed at the bottom of the shores

of ships that bring you out to the

parking lot

where I purchase you.