By daniel barrios
The Caribbean Sonnet
We’re moving together now,
not because we planned to,
pero la música taught us how
to move on through,
don’t say nothing amor,
watch how I move my feet
and follow the Taíno lore
until it takes us into the street
through the humid darkness
into the jungles of our mind,
do not be afraid my sweet Goddess,
this is our gravity grind
across the dirty dance floor,
like two roosters rising, let’s roar.
daniel barrios (he/él) is Dominican/Puerto Rican writer from Staten Island, New York now living in Dodge City, Kansas. barrios has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Southern New Hampshire University where he received a residency scholarship. barrios’ debut collection of short stories, A Good Impression, is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press- Stevens Point, March 2028 (Cornerstone Press imprint). His collection was a finalist for the 2025 EastOver Prize for Debut Short Story Collections and a 2025 finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series. He is the winner of The Brooklyn Review’s 2023 Fiction Contest: This Time It’s Personal! His fiction appears in The Brooklyn Review, Pleiades Magazine, Latino Book Review & his poetry appears/forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Naugatuck River Review and elsewhere. He has been supported with residencies and fellowships through PREE Writing Studio (Kingston, Jamaica), Abode Press (Virtual), PERIPLUS (Virtual), Under the Volcano (Tepoztlán, Mexico), Sundress Academy for the Arts (Knoxville, TN), and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing (Virtual).