I speak in a bridge.
One foot in Spanish, my mother’s lap,
One foot in Spanish, my mother’s lap,
sun-warmed syllables,
words that knew me before I could name them.
The other in English, my father’s tongue,
learned on Brooklyn streets,
laced with sirens and subway songs.
words that knew me before I could name them.
The other in English, my father’s tongue,
learned on Brooklyn streets,
laced with sirens and subway songs.
I was born in Uruguay,
where the sky is wide
and the past still walks beside you.
But I’ve lived in Brooklyn
long enough for its rhythm
to echo in my bones.
When I cross the bridge,
the city exhales, and I know
I am home.
where the sky is wide
and the past still walks beside you.
But I’ve lived in Brooklyn
long enough for its rhythm
to echo in my bones.
When I cross the bridge,
the city exhales, and I know
I am home.
I carry languages
like inheritance,
not burden, but blood.
I dream in two tongues,
sometimes in both at once.
If Spanish is my mother,
English is my father.
And somewhere, between them,
I long for the language
of the Lenape,
who named the rivers
long before either arrived.
like inheritance,
not burden, but blood.
I dream in two tongues,
sometimes in both at once.
If Spanish is my mother,
English is my father.
And somewhere, between them,
I long for the language
of the Lenape,
who named the rivers
long before either arrived.
I do not speak it,
but I would honor it,
if I could.
but I would honor it,
if I could.
So I speak in bridges,
in borrowed sounds and sacred echoes.
And I belong to this city
in every word I carry.
in borrowed sounds and sacred echoes.
And I belong to this city
in every word I carry.