by Aida Salazar
How much longer will we be here, Mami?
Mami’s worried I don’t know looks
like a rain cloud just covered her face.
Every day and every night
we make different sounds for sadness
a chorus of cranes
sighs, whimpers,
cries, soft,
muffled, echoing loud.
Wheezing. Can this be sad?
Yes, the way it whistles into
and out of little lungs, a rattling
and is followed by
coughs and hacks
drowning
in the
coldest
tristeza.
New cranes crowd our chain-link cell
and the chain-link cells across from ours.
Some look like teens
but they take care, like mamas,
of other kids.
Mami notices they are here
without mothers or fathers.
Almost alone.
I overhear guards call them
“practically unaccompanied minors.”
I don’t know
what that means exactly
other than they are here
almost solas.
Their wings smaller
more hidden
more injured
than the rest of ours.
I see Mami’s schoolteacher heart
bend into kindness for them.
I don’t know what she might do.
Mami gathers the stories
about the almost solitas in broken
bits and pieces.
They are in charge of their siblings.
They’re looking for their mothers.
They’re running from their fathers.
They were threatened by gangs.
They’ve lost their way.
They need to work to send help back home.
Home in
Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico
like us.
They are cranes whose
song-like names I try
to catch in my brain …
Roxanne, Mariee, Allison, Claudia, Johanna.
They don’t trust us
so, I tell them about the prophecy
in my best Papi Spanish.
The Mexica people came
from Aztlán—the place of the cranes
which we think was an island
on a misty lake, here in El Norte.
Seven tribes
including the Mexica
traveled south like cranes
when Huitzilopochtli—
Who?
The god of war
announced his
prophecy that they
would move south
to build their great
civilization in the
ombligo of the world.
¿De veras? How can this be true?
Because my papi told me so.
He said Aztlán is
our ancestral homeland
and all migrants have come
back home.
But they turn away
like they don’t believe
a little kid they just met
like me.
Inside those long, cold days
I wonder what our flock
is doing—Tío Juan, Tina, Diana, Amparo.
I see them looking through
our box of treasures.
Diana, holding our pictures
in her soft hands.
Then, Amparo
playing alone
in our yarda
with a stick
I left behind.
And Tina, missing her mami
and posting a quinceañera makeup
tutorial on her Gram page
and getting so many likes.
When I try to imagine
Papi, his face fades
into fog.
Mami says it’s been a week since
we were swallowed by
this monster.
A week?
It feels as long as a year.
We line up for showers
though we don’t have
anything else to wear.
Some cranes are covered
in dirt so thick it’s hard to tell
the real color of their clothes.
But then they give us
a dingy towel and
a bag of old clothes
for us to fish for anything clean.
We find
T-shirts
sweatshirts
the biggest, boxiest underwear
and pants.
They want us to throw our
old things into the trash.
I turn to Mami and shake my head.
I don’t want to give up my blouse.
I want to keep Papi’s pillow square close.
The woman guard with yellow hair
stands above me.
She is a tower when I look up.
Her hand on her hips, she
clears her throat and
fumes,
Now!
I stomp my feet on her foot
accidentally when I sass back,
No!
I don’t want you to take my blouse!
Mami pleads with me,
Betita, por favor. Don’t make trouble.
The guard grabs me by the arm
shakes my body like a sheet
and starts to pull up my blouse.
Mami steps in like wind.
No la toques, you will not touch my little girl!
I touch who I want!
You will not!
Mami snatches me away
with mama-bear strength.
The guard goes to hit Mami,
but the guard only
scratches her arm.
Mami pulls me behind her
and looks at Yellow Hair
right in the snake of her eyes.
Do as you are told, wetback!
Mami doesn’t answer, but
she also doesn’t move.
Behind her, I quickly pull my hand
into my blouse and remove
the pin that holds my pillow square
and sneak them into the new clothes
that have dropped to the floor.
When I come up, I pull off my blouse
hold it against my bare chest
and stare brick hard up at Yellow Hair
until she begins to move on and says,
That’s more like it.
All the women and girls have to bathe
in one big open shower.
I want to fly away.
I can tell Mami is crying
though she turns me away
so she can wash my hair.
I hear the little gasps
of breath she takes laced
with the tiniest squeak.
I have to close my eyes
but I open my mouth
to swallow the shower water because
inside our cell there is no fountain
and the handwashing sink is broken
so we drink from the toilet tank.
I pretend it is raining
and Amparo and I
are in our yarda
tongues out
collecting the drops …
Then, sudde
nly, I hear Mami gag.
I turn to see her folded over
holding her nest
and throwing up
a liquid mess
all over the shower.
Ay, Virgencita, she cries.
Yellow Hair comes
in with her baton out
grabs Mami
by the hair and pulls
up her head
growling, What now, wetback?
But Mami continues
to throw up
so Yellow Hair lets her go
and laughs at her.
When Mami is done
I am her cane.
I help her rinse off
and walk her to
the changing area.
I look back to see
Josefina running the water
over the mess Mami made.
Are you okay, Mami? I ask
the worry and the smell making
me want to throw up too.
I need to lie down, mi’ja.
I just need to lie down.
My lap makes a pillow
for Mami’s head while
she lies on the frozen concrete floor.
I tucked her in snuggly
with both of our silver blankets.
I stroke her head quietly
searching for dulzura.
Rub the pillow square against her cheek.
I wish I knew the words to the song
about a paraíso so I could sing it to her.
Instead, I hum it.
I stare at her brown crane-skin
paler than before
and her thick, wavy hair
still wet and so deep brown
it shines like ocean stone.
I follow the shape of her body
the way her nest makes
her back bend into an
S
and her front into an
O.
Two months until it hatches.
I want to ask Mami if she
thinks we will be out of here
by then, but she is sleeping now.
Right before I close my eyes
I see the O of her nest
turn into a Q.
I know our baby chick is moving
and suddenly
everything feels better.
Before we flew across the deserts
before we landed in East LA
before Tío Pedro went missing
before we found our flock here
before I knew of picture poems
before we were trapped in a monster
I was an egg inside of Mami
inside Mexico, stirred, cooked, and hatched
right from the nesting hearts
of a singing Mami and a dreaming Papi
whose mountain home was filled with love.
Is there a doctor I can see?
Mami asks Josefina.
She answers first
with a big sigh, then says,
You have to get better on your own
or you have to fake it. They can take
your girl from you, if you aren’t well.
Yanela turns out her lower lip
scrunches it against her top in agreement.
I hear this and it scares a chill all over me.
Mamita, will you please get better fast?
I don’t want to be away from you.
Please.
Please.
Please!
Mami struggles to lift herself.
Baby Jakie claps happy hands
together to see her get up.
Mami presses my cheeks together
her always cariñito
and says, Sí, mi amorcito. I will.
Though the panic keeps
running
wild
all over my head.
I lean against the chain-link
and watch Mami lie back down to sleep.
I think Tío Juan
maybe never called Fernanda?
Maybe he was too scared to call?
Maybe he and Papi are looking for us?
Maybe Fernanda abandoned us too
and we will never leave this dangerous place?
Maybe there is no such thing
as finding dulzura in our struggle?
Maybe we will never see Papi again?
Maybe I will forget the flower of his face?
The next morning
I’m up before everyone.
My head itches
so badly all I want to do is
S C R A T C H
S C R A T C H
S C R A T C H!
Oh oh! ¿Piojos?
Mami is still sleeping
and I’m not waking her
to worry her more.
So I just do it.
I use my fingernails to dig
into the itchy craziness in my hair
and it makes me
feel so much better for
a tiny second
before I’ve got to do it
again
and again.
I see Yanela catch me
scratching, so I put
my hand down quickly.
Her eyes aren’t floating into space.
She smiles shyly at me
then gently waves me over
to sit next to her.
Maybe she wants to check
to see if what I fear
I have is for real.
I’m so glad Carlos is snoring away.
Yanela is a quiet mouse
but moves her fingers
through my bedhead
parting and p u l l i n g
parting and p u l l i n g
what feels like one
long strand at a time.
I ask her,
Do you think I have piojos?
And she is silent.
How do you know it isn’t the soap
left over from the shower?
And she is silent.
Do you speak English?
And she is silent.
But when I ask the same in Spanish
she finally answers to say,
No.
I have to rearrange my mind.
My question seems stupid.
I should have known.
Everyone in here speaks Spanish, mostly.
Mami and I are the few who speak both.
Then, Yanela quickly chases
and catches
and crushes
a critter between her fingers
with the same tiny pop
her mom made before.
Are you ever going to say anything, Yanela?
I use my East LA Spanish.
And still she is silent.
I figure, I will talk to her instead.
I begin to tell her
all about who we are.
We once lived like cranes
in a place called Aztlán
where we were free to roam
across the land …
I can tell she is listening
because she pauses
but when I turn my head
she goes back to parting and p u l l i n g.
She works on my head quietly
and I keep going on and on
spinning and tangling up
all of Papi’s stories
until I notice Mami start
to stir awake.
I dash over and lie next to her
and I look at her slightly puffy
eyes still bloodshot from yesterday.
I want my face to be the one
to make her well.
I feel better this morning.
It all caught up to me,
Mami explains.
I don’t blame her.
The food has been so gray
and what that yellow-haired guard
did to us made me so scared
I g
ot lice.
Well, maybe I got it without her
but still.
I check Mami’s arm to see
three
red
streaks
that Yellow Hair’s awful claws
left on her skin.
Mami thinks that Yellow Hair
descends from cranes, like us
because her hair is bleached yellow
and her last name is Pacheco.
But she called us wetbacks, Mami?
Then, I scratch my head, wildly.
Mami sighs so deeply
just closes her eyes
and nods.
After the breakfast Mami and I refuse to eat
Yanela signals me over to her
with a tiny wiggle of her pointer finger.
Tell me again about the cranes,
los tocuilcoyotl, she whispers
as she turns my shoulders
away from her and picks apart my hair.
There once was a great migration
brown-and-white cranes
swept their way south.
They flew to find the great city
in the belly button of the universe
which was a tiny island where they saw
the most amazing thing—an eagle
devouring a serpent on top of a cactus.
So they built their city around the tiny sacred island
and filled in the shallow water with earth.
There they would dance, and croon rattle their songs,
and farm, and build nests, and make magic.
And one day, the migration was reversed
and the magical cranes flew north
back to the place where they began
to dance, croon rattle their songs, farm,
build nests, and be magical there once again.
If our wings weren’t clipped, Yanela,
we could fly too.
I look over my shoulder to see
Yanela’s itsy-witsy smile.
When Yanela is done,
she folds my hair into two
pretty, long French braids.
But then I feel a really hard YANK!
I’m shocked
and I turn around
feeling so betrayed.
Ow!
I see Carlos laughing out loud
with his wet thumb outside his mouth.
Yanela whacks him on the arm.
Hey! I’m just welcoming her
to the piojo club. It’s her initiation!
All I dare do is scrunch my nose at him
while I stick out my tongue.
I’ve just made a friend
who I don’t want to lose
but I could do without
her little booger of a brother.
I start counting the days
two weeks now
locked in here
with one hour of light
the coughing sounds of sadness