Water Song

I have never worshipped the water the same way I
knelt during masses;
choked on saltwater so many times I
almost drowned,
swore myself away from dark waters until I
almost died of thirst and still—
I find myself dreaming of the ocean, again.

I find myself thinking of black sand beaches and
the places my father’s family once
called home,
I dream about the way riptides carry
bodies away from the shore,
me, a child, gasping for breath as I am fished out of the waves,
papi, as a child, gasping for breath as he is fished out of the waves,
the way long hair transcends gravity as it floats
upwards when I hold my breath,
just this once we can be beautiful;

In my dreams I return to California where my Tia
tells me about how my mother was the
kindest mother she had ever seen,
my wet hair clings to my back,
my fingers trace damp sand, the sun beats down on us all and
I beat back tears,
once again, we return to the water but
I cannot offer anything substantial in my dreams.

So here is a promise: to
the rain, to the
ocean, to the bodies of water
both seen and unseen, evaporated once again,
I will return back to the water, I will find
my way back, and when
I speak of rain, what I wish to say is
I promise, once again, I promise we can
be beautiful once more.

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Ancestor Song

My ancestors have grown quiet.
They have grown quiet and
stayed that way for a long time, now;
stayed quiet since 1986, when
he condemned himself to the land
of the dead, where lady liberty does not
hold a flame to welcome immigrants but to
keep them away, as if to say
leave, once and for all, for good.
My ancestors have grown quiet.
Nobody wants to speak from the tomb, from
a body crushed under the weight of earthquakes,
I should understand ancestral worship but
even I can recognize exhaust from beyond the grave,
in the eyes of strangers.
My ancestors have grown quiet
and I listen
and listen
and the quiet still lingers,
lingers in hushed voices and lucid dreams and
the few heirlooms that still exist but it will
still linger, still silent after all.