Mi papa gulps cold cerveza outside the window
of the closest-nursery, unmade and cramped, he leans
the bottle against the flat walls of the house. It matches mi mama’s.
She, still skinny, thinks— in eight weeks,
another blue blanket, blue matching hat and socks
would be nice to knit. The hat has the sewed name Hoymar,
today’s sea. Just past La Asunción de Mary
she knows that all beings go to heaven, she is thankful for
her own mama, her mama giving a home for her, her love,
the baby on the way. Mi ma feels like a bad housewife
in a house full of madres.
She tells herself she’s not married yet, mi papa
sleeping with other will-be madres. He loves
mi mama, works hard for their future. Each day
she walks with him to work so she can use
her heavy legs, buy groceries, blue yarn.
Each day she walks her hermana’s kids
around the several parks, gets fresh fruits from
street markets. Sometimes it will be ice cream,
or steaming empandas. Sometimes it’s a book—
Pablo Neruda or Gabriel Garcia.
This is our home now, she tells her nieces,
the child, as her waters break on the sidewalk.

Es mi Cali bella.
Es as in is, as in being—
to be. To be my

Mi, my, mine— possessive.
An ownership of something;
something I should be proud of, like
Mi, my tongue. But instead,
mi, my tongue buries languages
at a sea mi, my tongue recognises as spit.
It crashes roman letters against clenched teeth holding
back on words like

Cali. Cali, Cali, mi, my faraway home
Cali, Colombia: where mi, my family was born,
where my family were killed, or peacefully
died in their beds, hands over chest, and buried at church.
And yet, we still celebrate. We clap along
to the bachata music on the bustling streets
like we’re praying. The loud happiness, and
the people are

Bella, beautiful. I see so many
people speaking—
singing bella, beautiful songs
that I can’t repeat.
I cut and sew each part of their bella,
beautiful mouths in place of mi, mine
and stitch their tongue against mi, my jaw.
I try to finish the song,
but I stay in silence.

        (My car nurses my warmed hands with its cold breath,
       I am refreshing myself, locking my doors, and looking out the windows
       in peace.       A mother and child are holding onto each other,
                            transferring strength through sweating palms.)
I hear the sounds of a million heated droughts.
A child-burdened mother’s throat is
tight, taut, scratched, wrung out/
dry for any blood that
sleeps in the curves
of her daughter’s bruised tongue.
I hear the dirt mudding itself to the child’s lower lashes.
Bedsheets strangled her thinning waist, clothing her; she, and her mother
stood, melting pavement ate ingrown toenails. 
The pair are vanishing from my sight,
still,
silent, slowly simmering/
boiling up in their weakening stomachs,
flushing the nearly forgotten, weeks old apple cores
out into sand fields—
out into empty hands no longer
holding kindness, passing lonely coins.
I hear the mother’s, the child’s
hungry guts wetting the droughts;
skin on skin on thin blankets on itching concrete,
harboring the wilting fine-boned bodies
aching for milk.

Grew up in the kitchen of Cali in the 1970s.
Learning to make morning café and pan,
learning to make tamales and still have their hair pretty,
sharing school uniforms and lunch money
always trying to split the house bills and save to get out,
stealing elementary school crushes,
cooking for each other and their mother and buying
small snacks for the house. Each one with her medical shots scar,
each one younger than the last,
each moving on from late-night clubbing before school, one year
closer to being a mother, further from
taking care of their mother, taking turns bathing her
in cold water, all of them
being shipped off to America and learning new rolls
of tongues, new Rs in New Jersey, further from Colombia.
They used to drink on the streets,
away from home to watch the men roll down their windows,
letting them hang out, little light touches:
Stop now, before the hands
come to cover your long brown bodies.

I hear my mother weep, on election day.
My high school halls are dark from a fallen sun, on election day.
The bus driver vote the same as the principal for fair wages, on election day.
Immigrants unleash their fury, on election day.
My papi hidden in fear, on election day.
My sister got married for money, on election day.
Slowly, I approach my classmates with hesita, on election day.
Hungry kids prepare to stay hungry, on election day.
The morning hush covers the math hallway, on election day.
Very silent, a flattened tile, on election day.
On election day, the animals drink water of lead.
On election day, the milk spills out the mouth of the baby.
On election day, the baby cries for the split milk so fiercely you would think that
    the Earth was cracked in half.

Miscalculates the legitimacy of the illegitimate driver’s licence,
caught, hands behind back,
air parting from his lungs
answering to punches—
gut spilling out from knuckles,
hurt slams into shins.
He sees fifty stars against blue sky & opened car door,
it’s at a strange angle, tethered to the hinges,
my father crawls on his belly
to call for help. He has my sister on the phone,
asks for an English dictionary from her
for the cop asking his name— the one on his licence
stole, and ruining the birth name against his tongue
that is trying to speak a language of
war, pride, strong white men marching from an immigrant
they smugly crushed between the meat of their palms.

From his studio apartment, bandaged, he calls me half—
expecting ICE on the other end of the phone, and cries
America broke my legs.

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives.
We did not tell them to risk their safety for disobeying the law.
We are not the ones who need to beg for handouts and citizenship.
We deserve to be able to separate from people like you.

Your cries will not be heard because the metal of your cage is too thick.
In order to keep you locked up, your children will be snatched from you.
Do not take off without your day in court.

If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way.
You better learn how to unstumble through words, look out for the roll of tongues.
Your insurance does not apply because your social security
does not exist. Be frightful of every knock at the door
handle each person in uniform with care.

You were detained at the border because you fit the profile.
You are presumed a rapist before a father seeking
a reason a chance for a better life.
It’s not our fault you were born outside of this country.
It is not our obligation to give you a safe home.

We are only listening to the statistics of your people.
We read on the news that millions of you are invading us.
You must know it is not our fault when you are killed,
we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you.

(For my brother)

If I had pesos, I could buy a baggie of cocaine for the girls
Down the streets next to my neighbourhood bakery, sell
New batches to the ladies of the night, stretch their legs for payment.
But sex don’t buy me a house
Or a car to pick up more bags
(although walking the backstreets gets me more traffic).
Girls only get me what they can give me.
(They are a bore when they can’t).
You think just because you have a family means
You can escape me and my boys from getting our pesos?
And eating at your dining table, pretending to be guests.
If I didn’t have these pesos I would be like you
Scraping for pan and café while scraping your clothes off the backseat car.
If I was my mother I would tell myself:
This man is not my son, he is just like schoolboys, peddling drugs and sex.
If only I had more bags to sell I could buy more houses to put girls in,
buy more cars… have more pesos to throw…
For Dios, my God, how I wish!
Expand my empire. My power will rise, eh?
Wearing my wealth will make me look more intimating!
Not so cowardly. I’m feared.
No loans, no I Owe Yous, we will bang
On your door for months until we have your payment.
The weeks on repeat. We are a tight family, don’t betray us.
One of my girls got HIV. No longer useful to me.
Need a non-stop flow of pesos. Everyone knows to pay
Up when they see me. Everyone knows they need to be useful,
A Woman-Stealer!
(I have yet to see one that has made more than a thousand a night)!
In your imagination, you see a mountain of papered currency in the dining room.
You picture naked girls separating the 20s from 100s. A table. Bags of drugs.
You take photos as proof. Try to turn me in, but you can’t see my face.
And I say Stick in till I’m done finding use for you, and you say,
Help yourself. Get out of this place while you can. Get clean, and go.
Here’s what we have to do to live in my country. You see.