The Map of an Immigrant

In this new land the fluid of her old name feels unfamiliar 

as it rolls off her dried lips.
Comfort foods her mouth once savored now taste foreign. 

A sparrow outside her bedroom window cries 

a different song. How she longs to find herself again 

in this pot before she melts. 

 

One day, the flavor of water changes. She loses
her accent, her smile as they say her words are unnatural,
that you aren’t un americano until you speak
the language that rolls off their tongues
because nothing makes you more American
than the red blood of your ancestors turned to dust
the white standard mold society pushes you into
and the blue water of voices that leech their way into your drowning lungs. 

 

Bones bury themselves once the memories leave
she uses her broken English
the way her great-grandchildren will someday use her broken Spanish. 

no te avergüences taunts the ghosts of their ancestors
For everything we lost, you gave nothing. 

but they marry those whose graves are different, 

they bury no past.