Читать книгу Unaccompanied - Javier Zamora - Страница 7

To Abuelita Neli

This is my 14th time pressing roses in fake passports

for each year I haven’t climbed marañón trees. I’m sorry

I’ve lied about where I was born. Today, this country

chose its first black president. Maybe he changes things.

I’ve told Mom I don’t want to have to choose to get married.

You understand. Abuelita, I can’t go back and return.

There’s no path to papers. I’ve got nothing left but dreams

where I’m: the parakeet nest on the flor de fuego,

the paper boats we made when streets flooded,

or toys I buried by the foxtail ferns. ¿Do you know

the ferns I mean? The ones we planted the first birthday

without my parents. I’ll never be a citizen. I’ll never

scrub clothes with pumice stones over the big cement tub

under the almond trees. Last time you called, you said

my old friends think that now I’m from some town

between this bay and our estero. And that I’m a coconut:

brown on the outside, white inside. Abuelita, please

forgive me, but tell them they don’t know shit.