Bitter coffee, musty beans, caramel and guava jam, rice and sausage, nippy cheese, saffron, anise, honey, ham, rosemary, oregano, clove, allspice and bacalao. Fifty years have blown away: childhood falls around me now, childhood and another place where the tang of orange sweets golden on the vendor's tray drifts like laughter through the streets. Memory is filament weaving, weaving what I am: bitter coffee, musty beans, caramel and guava jam.© Rhina P. Espaillat
From Lapsing to Grace (Bennett and Kichel, 1992)