Bahía Bioluminiscente Vieques, Puerto Rico

When the light comes in—a tipsy pour
of champagne exuberance rushing
sternward beneath our clear-bottom
boats, oars dip-dip-dipping as tiny gods
conjuring constellations in league with
our strong bodies—water constellations
of millions dwarf archer, bull, compass,
dog, dippers mother and child, the
seven sisters, looming silent above.

We eight sisters below scoop stars
from blackness. Our mothering bodies
heave, pulling against wind & current,
distill agitation, saline, sea, mangrove
debris into moon shine and water light.
If we frighten you like the pirata Cofresí—
who claimed bewitched waters against
the Spanish, against the US Americans
who
turned, bore their crosses and impotence
back through narrow channel—
then our treasure, magnificent
tracking, the pull and rudder of
our ancient oars, is nothing for you.

Yes! we scoff delightedly at
the happy epithet of witch,
the peaks and troughs of our teeth
filled with luciferin, breath-
work of luciferin startling
predators as we glide, grins
aglow in the devil’s bay—
throwing shade at States,
marauders, monotony—we glow, 

grow, reverse the night into gloaming
as we metabolize fallen leaves of
the mangrove, detritus of the bay,
of seven oceans, of the continents
between; like the bahía we are vigor and
wild shine after the hurling, hurried winds
of hurricane, heartbreak, hardship. Light-
ening in dark, hearts of kokuio, wayfarers
we.

Glossary:
bahía – bay
bioluminiscente – bioluminescent
pirata – pirate
kokuio – Taíno word for firefly

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Fight Like A Mother: A Celebration of Resistance and Resilience.
A Mother’s Day Poetry Collection