Rossy Evelin Lima

it tastes like cardboard, like promises printed on cereal boxes

with artificial sweeteners dissolving on a tongue/ that forgot its mother’s milk

I would rather eat stale pan dulce

sitting next to a man with hands calloused from burying his kin

I long for instant coffee, Nescafé, bitter and grainy

mixed in a chipped mug

by fingers that could coax music from a broken

harmonica

in this land of plenty, I am starving for the scent of sand and cigarettes

for the sound of his cough at dawn

for the weight of his stories

heavier

more nutritious than any $9.99 all American meal

to eat next to a man, not free but feral

wild with the wisdom of survival

his laughter a revolution

against the silence of empty stomachs

here, I eat freedom for breakfast

orphaned from hunger

orphaned from the fierce joy

of finding a ripe mango hanging from a tree

in this country, I’m well-fed, rosy cheeked

my taste buds remembering what güelo said:

freedom is not a flavor

but the space between heartbeats

when even breathing is an act of defiance.

my small hand anchored in Abuelo’s palm

five men, with my skin, my nose, my eyes

ascend a cloud-piercing pole

one for each cardinal point

one at the center

my heart thrums with the whistle’s cry

syncopating with the drum’s earthen voice

the standing Volador is a bird-

man balancing on one foot

his perch is no wider than a tortilla

I grip tighter as ropes uncoil

four bodies suspended by tradition

— they— make the sun trace one more golden arc across the sky

Abuelo, they’ll fall I say

with a voice as thin as the rope that holds them

but they fly, arms outstretched,

circling thirteen times, one for each heaven

the world blurs

something inside me knows this is the way

the only way the only truth

when their feet touch the ground

I breathe again, look up to find Abuelo’s eyes on me

smiling a ¿ya ves que no pasó nada?

in this spinning chaos of migration

his hand is just as strong as that rope

[holding me]

just as strong as that rope

[reminding]

just as strong as that rope

[shouting]

I was born in a land where people fly.