Viaje Fantástico, 2012 

Jasmine Joseph

She stood in between her parents watching the water boil over strips of her favorite dress. They stirred the rags, pot bubbling in harmony with their stomachs. She stewed. Said, “Voy saliendo, a buscar un gallo…” Her father tossed her a fork. Her mother, a pair of high heel shoes. Well-armed, she strutted out to Plaza Vieja to find a rooster to feed her family.

Dancing in and out of bars and hotel lounges she spun on the the balls of her feet to the salsa music playing on the street. Her firm thighs flexing in the moonlight. Copper shoulders glowing as she shimmied in the same spot where not long ago black bodies stripped bare, just like hers, were commodified in the square built by their own hands. A crowd formed around her. She felt and met all their stares and in them, she found him.

Soy la jinetera montando mi gallo gigante. The pride of my household. With fresh meat on the table, I no longer miss those old rags. The biggest cock in the plaza stands firm at my order, conquered by my sweet papaya. I sit on it, bald and bare as the day I was born. Equipped with the gifts of my ancestors.

Papi’s fork, a four-pronged spear, that I carry on my shoulder to feed my people. Mami’s shoes spotlight my smooth legs, my dancer toes pointed in earnest, enticing more to the feast. This flightless bird can take me farther than my own two feet. With one leg raised, anticipating our “fantastic voyage” he scans the old plaza with me. 

We are a weathervane, pointing north Mi gente, ride the wind on up.

Jasmine Joseph was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She was a poetry fellow at The Center for Black Literature’s Wild Seeds Retreat for Writers of Color in 2019 and also won the poetry award at the Eleventh National Black Writers Conference. She is an alumna of Medgar Evers College with a BA in English, Creative Writing.