By Alexa Hurtado-Montaño
Negra, ¿A quién le perteneces más?
I walk the streets with no name
My tongue doesn’t connect you with your ideas of black skin.
El cabello azabache no pasa desapercibido.
The rhythm of my hips doesn’t forgive you for your wrong story about us.
My dark pearl shadow is still present.
¿Puedes verla?, ¿Puedo verla?
No te permito volverme recuerdo o neblina
¿Me escuchas?, ¿Puedes verme?
I follow you with illusive looks of me.
Your worldview does not limit my ingenuity.
¿Me recuerdas?, ¿Me entiendes?
Te imagino amando en español
Con fortaleza de ébano.
Con ancestralidad en mis venas.
Con presencia de arena infinita.
¿Y el mar?, ¿y la brisa?
Time is running in my favor.
Memories detail my soul in this place of emptiness.
¿Y el puerto?, ¿y la isla?
My essence of emerald resistance
My memory of Nates-Montaño
Me sostienen mil historias entre el África, el Pacífico y Buenaventura.
¿Y los cuentos?, ¿y el mar?
My look of gold, silver and jungle confuses you.
And the brown sugar?
I find you in every mispronounced word.
¿Y los arrullos?
No encuentras la traducción
¿Negra?, ¿Brown?, ¿Afrolatina?
No, Melencó.
Breathe
I remember to look at the mountains
From the corner of the park of mi casita blanca
La banquita azul deteriorated by the time and forgetting.
Las carreras imaginarias contra el viento y la niñez agotada
A tree that fell next to my mother
Tears of illusions games lost.
Montar la rueda con la mirada blanca y mareada
Screams
Laughs
Despedidas
Illusions of meetings never given
El resbalador que me llevaba hasta a ti.
The slide that took me to you
Broken knees
El sudor sin cansancio
The little houses for our fears
The ants crawling up the earthen hands
La pelota desinflada
Eternal rounds
La bicicleta de arcoíris
My grandfather’s kiss
The top of the immortal tree
My friend with Cabello azabache
Complies and secrets
Mi abuela en la mecedora
The way to school
El juego de maracuya enterno
And mother’s hand to start over and over again.
Aroma
El olor de tu inocencia en mi cabello
Tus dedos sanando pesadillas
Mi mirada intentando entender fantasmas
Un suspiro
Tus labios partidos
Mi respiración rota
Las lágrimas limpiando recuerdos
Silencios sin miedos
Memorias erizadas
El púrpura de mis uñas
Agarrando tu pasado
El lenguaje consolando tus promesas
Palabras
Mi condena
Cicatrices en tus ojos.
Tu piel quebrada
La luz de tu sombra
La ventana de testigo
El pecado de mi mente
El aire censurado
Y tú aroma atravesándome los sueños.
Alexa Hurtado-Montaño was born in Cali, Colombia. She is a poet and a PhD student in Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas), holding a degree in literature from Universidad del Valle (Cali, Colombia). She was a Martin Luther King MLK-Fellowship Program Scholar and a recipient of the Diploma in Leadership for Political Advocacy at the Catholic University, through which she strengthened her cultural initiatives and community processes. Her interests lie in Afro-Colombian, Afro-Latin American, and Afro-Caribbean literature by women. She is an organizer and coordinator of the annual event “Black Women Poetry” at Texas A&M University and has participated in events such as several conferences and poetry recitals. In her anthology Confesiones de Melencó (2024), her creations are an act of poetic justice that vindicate the body as territory and resignify her daily life as an Afro-Colombian woman.