protest & at the school where few can say my children’s names correctly
should i tell her about the girl in the bombed out car /
her family dead around her /
how she called for help /
should i tell her about the girl in the bombed out car /
her family dead around her /
how she called for help /
Te imagino amando en español /
Con fortaleza de ébano. /
Con ancestralidad en mis venas. /
Con presencia de arena infinita. /
smells like stories gone /
yellow with age like dreams /
of a land where your name sits /
awkward on their tongues /
Sometimes, I go back /
Just me and nature unmuffled /
I have planted my dreams again /
Belonging has been a lifelong negotiation of where I am and where I want to be.
Childhood memories haunt me, /
Spanish-speaking little brown girl /
sitting in Ms. Jones’ first-grade classroom /
The dust of many stars /
Has settled upon /
the revolutionary aspirations /
of our ancestors. /
The desert was my home, /
And I tried to drown the blaze, /
Filling it with water and rain and lush forests, /
And how he howled and flapped his sombrero /
when she leveled her pistols /
smiling that she got him /
What if all I have is my father’s tongue /
in my mother’s brown skin, /
with white teeth that /
cannot hold in these small, round beans? /
primeras despedidas, me lleno de amor for the next migration.
and I could have /
told you /
you fed me back /
my blood, opened /
my heart /
made it beat /
with your impossible mirrors /
The wind tells of Juliana, /
India Juliana, a Guaraní woman /
of Asunción. You ordered her /
executed before the people. /