By Lisbeth Coiman

I love you in Spanish

because in my mouth your name sounds thick like honey

A slow drip down my thighs

 

Each vowel open                    accented

marking the syllables like a poem in Braille

My fingers sliding softly on your chiseled biceps

 

with dexterity on the darkness of your skin

The rhotic erres roll from the tip of my tongue

onto your robust legs

 

After a pause               they produce a trill

My voice quavering    laughter           relish

calls your name with diagraphic elles

 

Spell love with the friction eñes

in the palate of your mouth                while I remain on your bed

fricative like the ache in the hollowness of your absence

 

 

Lisbeth Coiman is an author, poet, educator, cultural worker, and rezandera. Coiman’s wanderlust spirit landed her in three countries, from her birthplace in Venezuela, to Canada, and finally to the United States, where she self-published her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017). Her poetry and personal essays are featured in the online publications: La Bloga, Entropy, The Acentos Review, Lady/Liberty/Lit, Nailed Magazine, Hip Mama, Rabid Oak, Cultural Weekly, and Resonancias, and in print media: Spectrum, Altadena Literary Review, and Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology. Coiman is an avid hiker and an English as a Second Language teacher living in Los Angeles, California. You can find her on her website at LisbethCoiman.com.