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Pine Row Issue No. 11 Autumn 2025 - Featured Poet
Before Our Journey
A bird, extinct, as if a raccoon
grew wings, straddled a branch
near a sugarcane field, unafraid,
cloaked in his pallor, clad
in a razor of thought, restless
to scratch his desire, to live
in his home where his hope belonged.
His knuckles crawled next to his elbows
on a wooden boat carved while I slept
and he whistled from his hammock.
Before our journey when soldiers hid
underneath my bed, pulled my feet,
and whispered triumph in my ears –
youth deluded, misled, and deceived.
The summer when goats bellowed
and cows floated downriver. Their bodies
bloated, flitted past on a froth of currents
and rushed fast. Before Conquistadors,
before Taínos, when volcanoes formed,
where they fed him bread and a bowl of beans
for dinner, after they removed his beak.
When he became an explorer
surrounded by a lattice of corn stalks
and he ran three days
on earth cracked from heat,
where they plied his plumes for honor
and he traveled north toward freedom
balanced on the hood of a truck.
About the Poems: As Shared by the Poet Melissa Andrés
About the Poems: As Shared by the Poet Melissa Andrés
From the desk of the poet:
I write to uncover my identity and to reconcile the culture of my birth with the culture of my upbringing. My poetry encompasses history and magical realism often incorporating aspects of loss and separation. My poetry expresses the sorrow and grief which arises when we seek refuge in another country. Absence and displacement inspire my poems. My writing speaks to many who have lost their families and their heritage.
Melissa Andrés grew up in Florida (Miami and Sarasota), but has lived in New York and Europe. She has worked as an educator and taught English as a second language. She holds a BA in International Studies from the University of South Florida and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Magma Poetry, The Sonora Review, the Chicago Quarterly Review, Other Side of Hope, and elsewhere. Melissa’s manuscript Together and Apart will be published by Pine Row Press in early 2026.
More at: https://www.melissaandrespoet.com/
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