if anything is going to heal us it’s going to be this moon-sliced mango, this pinch of salt, and the white rice boiling on the stove like drums.
there’s grass stains on your white jordans and tan lines under your t-shirt. the july sky breaks open like an orchestra, the pavement burns against our feet. summer was built for immigrants.
drive up this sun-swollen road with your windows down and listen to the cowbells, the tambourines, the grill hissing between the intros and outros of dominican guitars. here we drink corona and get sentimental and sway our hips and no one minds.
gathering is happening and has been happening since the first banana tree grew roots in the iron-filled soil and will keep happening until the hudson river floods every last new york suburb.
here is where we’ve danced since the war broke out. here is where we paint the caves.
REBECCA HERRERA is a strawberry-haired girl born and raised in New York. She received her bachelor’s in Art History and Museum Professions from the Fashion Institute of Technology and has two associate degrees in Visual Arts and English. She has had work featured in Small Leaf Press, Horse Egg Literary, Hecate Magazine, and others. She is currently the managing editor of fifth wheel press and lives in an apartment with her three plants, Orpheus, Eurydice, and Calliope.