by Aida Salazar
When I tell Mami,
Tengo hambre.
She looks down
into me,
Sí, mi amorcito, I am too.
That’s when I remember
growing a baby makes
Mami caterpillar hungry
and if she forgets to eat
protein, she gets
woozy headaches
and throw-up sick.
In a cage with what looks
like thirty mothers and children
Mami and I find
a little spot on the concrete floor
enough for one to sit.
Mami goes down first, then
pulls my hand
pats the space in front of her
for me to sit between
her legs.
She covers us three
with the silver sheets.
The others
watch us, closely
waiting for us
while we wait
patiently
for them to say
hello.
Mami searches the stare of a woman
opposite us.
We are eager for a smile
but that woman is empty of sonrisas
so Mami looks
to the next
and the next
everyone either too blue or sleepy
to find a way to make pursed lips
turn up
let a sun ray free.
Slowly cranes begin to lie down
pull their foil blankets over the
ghosts of wings,
arms, legs,
their children’s too.
The cold is too prickly to sleep.
Mami keeps searching for light
starts to receive shy nods instead
until finally a woman right next to us
with three children of her own
lets an hola
bloom in her mouth.
To imagine Papi’s frown
when he found out
we weren’t coming, but taken away
makes me dizzy with sadness.
I want to think of dulzura
like Papi always says
so I imagine we are
in a backyard ballroom fiesta
red, yellow, orange, and green
ribbons shoot through the air
weave themselves into the cages
wrapping us warm with waltzing smiles.
I think of happy Tina
and my one-day quinceañera
I think of spelling a spell
and Virgencita angels with wings
but the cold breeze
stops me.
I squint it away
and dream of ribbons, again
but the chill that rips
up my chicken skin
reminds me, stronger
that we are sitting
in a crowded cell
my little dulzura, dying.
She says her name is Josefina Ramírez
from a fishing town in El Salvador.
We missed dinner.
It’s a miserable tray of frozen vomit-like food.
Tomorrow you will taste it for yourselves.
She fusses with her baby
a round-faced brown crane chick
who scuttles and coughs into her side.
Is this how I should keep warm?
She says,
Pronto, the lights
will be out for the night.
But the flashlights will be in our
faces every hour. I’m not sure
what they are checking for.
One thing for sure
they never make it warm here.
Her chicks are
quiet when
they aren’t coughing.
Their faces are bright with rashes.
Their eyes blink like flickers
while they scratch their heads.
Their lips are purple blue with cold.
I pretend I am
a newborn chick too
and find the warmest
place to be beside Mami
and the egg.
The crinkle crackle of the blankets
slowly comes to a hush after a while
and I feel Mami crying like others
but the
cough
cough
cough of
Josefina’s chicks keep punching
the night
until that too
becomes a pounding
that stones me
to sleep.
I dream of Papi
flying
alongside me.
His bright black ojos glisten.
I see his wavy hair
pushed back by wind.
Mami is flying too
the egg under her.
The park and freeways
below, cars
like ants
we are so high.
All of us, soaring.
Then I see him fall
sudden
with the sound like a
firecracker
so loud it leaves a ringing
in my ears.
Then I fall too
though I flap
my arms
in a fever.
Mami falls
behind us.
I scream.
A wet red dot
grows in my chest
which I touch
with my fingers.
I sense we’ve
been shot.
By men in the mountain
below
I can’t see?
My heart is a speed train
inside my body
that bursts me awake.
Then, I see the safety pin
that holds Papi’s pillow square
is poking me and
draws blood.
I’m lying next to Mami
on the concrete floor.
My panza mumble grumbles
and my throat
feels like there’s
a big ol’ grapefruit
stuck behind my
tongue.
The lights come on
inside this cage
and a mass of silver
foil blankets
begins to stir
in the ever cold
of this hielera.
This is Yanela, Carlos,
and baby Jakeline,
says the mama crane
who spoke to us last night.
I sit up next to Mami
shiver as I lean into her
and notice their brown faces
soft, in the glowing white light.
I see the shape of their
broken wings
whose tips they use
to scratch
scratch
scratch
their heads.
Josefina pulls lil’ Jakie
next to her and begins
sorting through her hair.
I scratch, feeling all
of a sudden an itch
on my own head too.
Mami combs down my feathers
with her hands while we
listen to Josefina tell us
how they got here.
Things were so hard, bien duras, in El Salvador.
I had a food cart where I sold pupusas I made myself.
The marreros came and asked me to pay rent every month or else they would hurt my children. I paid the first month but the next month when I didn’t want to p
ay, they beat me right in front of baby Jakie and said they knew where Yanela and Carlos went to school. So I paid again though it left nothing for our expenses. Then I saw them kill a man for not paying the rent on his cart. I knew we would be next. We left that night. We hid in another town with my aunt. My mother sent us the money to pay the coyote to bring us to the border to turn ourselves in. But they locked us up behind these fences. Trapped like animals when all we wanted was a little help.
As we listen
the baby is now free-falling into
the older girl’s arms and giggles
so sweetly, but her sister
doesn’t break a smile.
Carlos, the boy, sways side to side
like he’s almost dancing
with a scowl at me
folded into
the raisin of
his thumb-sucking
face.
When Mami shares
how we ended up here
she holds me closer.
I try to tell Josefina about cranes
but Mami hushes me.
She whispers
to try not to cry.
Josefina shakes her head
while Mami talks
wrinkles her lips tight
tries to calm Jakie on her
lap again and keeps
dipping into the baby’s head.
Then, as if she’s caught something
between two nails
she presses until something
tiny, so very tiny, pops.
What was that?
She half smiles like she
feels sorry for me
because I don’t know.
Son piojos.
Lice are little bugs
people sometimes get.
Give it a few days here, mi’ja,
and you’ll have them too.
Carlos squints
at me, pulls the thumb he’s been
sucking out of his mouth,
and lets out a cackle.
The stinker.
Yanela, the girl,
looks down
the entire time.
She droops sad
like wilted flowers.
I offer a smile to Yanela
to try to grow dulzura
in a girl who could be my age
who could be a friend?
Her expression is
as still as steel.
Josefina sees me
reaching
into the soil of her daughter
wanting to plant a friendship.
She lifts Yanela’s chin
for a second
but as soon as she lets go
Yanela’s head buries
down
into the ground
like lead again.
Josefina takes a shallow breath
and wants to smile at us
but it is chased away
by her own gloomy voice
as she unravels more
of her story like yarn.
They took my niños from me
days after we arrived here the first time.
They called it “zero tolerance.”
I’ll never forget how they cried
as they pulled them away
with so much fear inside their tears
I could do nothing about.
Though I begged, day and night,
to have them back
they kept them from me for two months.
The longest, most painful days of my life.
I didn’t know if I would ever see them again.
I don’t know where they took them
or what they did to them.
I know one thing.
They were different children
when they finally gave them back.
They deported us to Tijuana the next day.
Now they caught us on our second try
to get to Los Angeles, where my sister
is waiting and has a place for us.
Qué pena, Josefina, I’m so sorry.
Mami taps the back of her hand gently.
Yanela pulls baby Jakie
onto her lap, circles her arms
around her sister, lightly
lays her forehead
on top of the baby’s head
like she wants to hide.
Baby Jakie wiggles her head
back and kisses Yanela on
the bottom of her chin.
I wrap the vines of my arms
around Mami’s steady leg
so afraid this hurt
will happen to us too.
I hear the unlocking of the gate
turn to see two guards with a cart.
One guard yells,
Burros, time to eat!
They called us donkeys, Mami,
I say to her in disbelief.
Though I’m starving
I grimace at them
but Mami wipes my face
gently with her hand.
I know she is hungry
by the way
she swallows slowly.
We line up to be served
a cardboard tray
holding a burrito
moldy and half-frozen.
Exactly how it feels
to be inside this prison.
I make a game
all by myself
with the cardboard tray
and the paper napkins
I keep.
I suck on small wads of paper
roll and mush them
into the shape of a bird
moist with my spit.
I pretend the tray
is a boat that sails
no
a nest.
I lay
the bird down
then stuff beneath
its little tail
a perfect oval egg.
Then I make a doll
whose legs I curl
beneath the bird
and turn her
face up
to look for
the bluest blue
in the sky.
I catch Yanela
looking too
so I mash together
another doll.
When I hold it up
to give to her
she turns
the other way.
One guard’s green-gray eyes are
a snake’s slithering in the grass.
He is not feathered.
He is not scared.
He is not caged.
He patrols and moves
his overgrown body through us
over and around us.
Circling.
Watching.
A badge with the name “J. Stevens”
like a dangerous mark
across his vest.
A gun holster like a rattle
shaking with each step.
He calls us burros, again.
Donkeys, but really it means stupid.
A word so hurtful Mami never
ever lets me use it.
Don’t whine, burros, we saved you from the desert.
He says it in perfectly
round Spanish
the kind of Spanish
that makes you want to
trust
because it is the Spanish
of Mami’s songs
and Papi’s stories.
I can’t get past
those beady eyes
and the hiss that hides
in every order
he gives.
Half a concrete wall covers a corner of the cage.
Every now and then I see people go in and out.
A toilet flushes and leaves a bitter smell
tells us someone just went.
Mami tells me, It is okay to go.
She’s gone twice in the night
’cause the egg pushes down on her bladder.
I don’t want everyone
to hear me
or smell me go
so I hold it
both number one and number two
until my panza hurts
and I cry as Mami
pulls me through
the cell to the toilet corner
so embarrassed
I bury my face
in my arm.
the toilet is piled high and
overflowing
with wads of toilet paper
from everyone’s wipes.
The stink stings my nose.
Mami moves to push
the paper pile down
into the can
with her foot
then wraps some paper
around her hands
and picks up
the other toilet paper wads
on the floor.
I’ll help you, I say
covering one hand
and with the other
plugging my nose
with the tips
of my fingers.
I notice some of the stains
peeking through
are red.
What’s that, Mami?
That’s blood from women
and girls on their regla.
I remember about
the cycles Mami told me
will one day
come to me too.
Pobres, looks like they are
using toilet paper for their necesidades.
We try to wash our hands
but the sink only drops
big drips of water.
Real rays, sun and sky
speckled by clouds
are a relief from
the freezing cold.
I hold Mami’s hand
and whisper
Mami, let’s fly
but she looks
at me with the saddest ojitos.
We can’t, Betita, remember
our wings have been clipped.
In the light, I can’t believe how huge
the white freezing monster is from outside.
I notice all of the fences
the guards at the edges
their guns ready on their belts
to stop us from leaving?
Let’s walk, mi’ja, get as warm as you can.
We walk past a group of kids
rubbing rocks on the ground
like chalk
and I wish to
draw something
write something
something big
an S.O.S.
a picture poem
maybe somebody will see
it and get us
out of here.
Maybe?
But I don’t want to leave Mami’s side for one second.
Mami sings while we walk
and I join in the smallest voice.
We move fast, so fast
sweat bunches up on our foreheads
until it is time to file back in.
