Como el Viento
Somaya Abdullah
Yo hablaba español
before things went too far downhill
before I had to escape American ghetto chipped walls and carpet vermin
for lush Guatemala
and Spanish became the language of the drunk.
To me Spanish is the heavy tongue
of those passing in and out of consciousness
and out of this world.
Como fantasmas volando, los espíritus pasan en una casa antigua.
In an ambulance, I watch my friend empty his body like he is ridding himself of all that he has ever carried on his back.
In the hotel room girls climb all over us, I remember monkey bars I could not reach, and fathers who raised their sons to grasp the metal.
Kids who had to teach themselves.
“Grasping metal, clutch the gun, I’m so angry you are gone.”
Wonder if he was ever here,
Spanish is the lost tongue my mother bit when he bridled her to show,
Before her stomach started to swell and she grew uneasy
Forgetting to call her mother, she could not remember the words she’d recited into dial tones
Something was gone and it was even more than her virginity
and dreams of college
something else was knocked up and out of her
Como el viento,
Como la mareo,
It had walked rivers and swam deserts to leave her,
expelled in blood in the toilet and pitch-black nights of useless tears.
In her dreams she pictured a lake filled with all the words she’d ever known.
She no longer thought in Spanish.
She dreamt without language.
Our jeans low-slung like American boys do
These streets of rubble no cradle but for
American boys like we
are/our pockets stuffed with plastic dreams
We receive no money from you
Self-made hustler preying on Guatemalan chicas with Latin tongues pierced on nights like these
Me pregunto si Jesús era un niño sin padre como nosotros
Me pregunto si Dios también nos ha abandonado.
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Como el Viento
Somaya Abdullah
Yo hablaba español
before things went too far downhill
before I had to escape American ghetto chipped walls and carpet vermin
for lush Guatemala
and Spanish became the language of the drunk.
To me Spanish is the heavy tongue
of those passing in and out of consciousness
and out of this world.
Como fantasmas volando, los espíritus pasan en una casa antigua.
In an ambulance, I watch my friend empty his body like he is ridding himself of all that he has ever carried on his back.
In the hotel room girls climb all over us, I remember monkey bars I could not reach, and fathers who raised their sons to grasp the metal.
Kids who had to teach themselves.
“Grasping metal, clutch the gun, I’m so angry you are gone.”
Wonder if he was ever here,
Spanish is the lost tongue my mother bit when he bridled her to show,
Before her stomach started to swell and she grew uneasy
Forgetting to call her mother, she could not remember the words she’d recited into dial tones
Something was gone and it was even more than her virginity
and dreams of college
something else was knocked up and out of her
Como el viento,
Como la mareo,
It had walked rivers and swam deserts to leave her,
expelled in blood in the toilet and pitch-black nights of useless tears.
In her dreams she pictured a lake filled with all the words she’d ever known.
She no longer thought in Spanish.
She dreamt without language.
Our jeans low-slung like American boys do
These streets of rubble no cradle but for
American boys like we
are/our pockets stuffed with plastic dreams
We receive no money from you
Self-made hustler preying on Guatemalan chicas with Latin tongues pierced on nights like these
Me pregunto si Jesús era un niño sin padre como nosotros
Me pregunto si Dios también nos ha abandonado.
← →
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