There's few things better
than a *** of good rice,
for hunger both physical
and emotional.

It's my one good tie
to what my father denied me.
My mother learned it
from my grandmother,
along with a host of other things,
like spam enchiladas;
something my mother never made.

It's simple too.
You gotta crack the rice first,
it's vital to keep it from sticking.
That's what they say,
and I'm not sure it's true
but I do it anyway.
You oil up a ***
or a deepset pan
and just fry it for a bit.
Then it's cracked
and ready for the rest.

The water needs a bit more too,
but just a bit.
Tomatoes and peppers
or maybe just tomatoes.
Chicken broth or stock too,
we always use Knorr.
I like to add some cumin
to give it a warm smell and taste.
Sometimes you don't add the veggies,
but either way it's a bit more.
Just a bit
because really it's just rice.

But it comes out warm
and smelling of home
and things that could've been home.
It tastes pretty good to boot.
It's my mother's rice
that she taught to me,
but my grandma taught it to her
and it could've been hers.
It should've been abuela's.

Could've been, should've been
it's a sign either way.
It's one of my ties,
the biggest one I think
because there's few things better
than a *** of good rice.

Your people have been here
for one thousand years and more,
longer even
than this country here.
Much, much longer.
Yet they'd tell you to leave
if only they knew
who you are,
what you are.
But they don't,
and you hardly don't.

Your Spanish is broken,
self-taught because your dad wouldn't,
not even your grandma would.
It's practiced in retail
selling credit cards
to people who can't afford them,
and not at home with family.
Your recipes are a mix
learned from your mom
and that grandma,
to your step family,
and even the ever present internet.
Your name?
It looks French, people say,
even though it doesn't at all
to anyone with even a passing knowledge
of that language or this name.
It's pure Mexican,
so pure not even a lot of friends know it
and are amazed to hear
that you're not really white.
There's others with it though,
some looking far less French than you.

You've never had a quince.
You never set up an ofrenda.
You never dealt with la chancla.
You got the hugs and kisses
and mijas and sweet things ending in -ita,
and you always had the food
and more of it
because you're too thin, mija.
You have so little though.
So little that when you look
at yourself
in the mirror
you see a ******.

Toss away that guilt though.
Get back what you can and more.
Don't be like your father
ashamed of what Spanish you know.
You're a Mexican too,
you just have to practice more.

Leaves rustle
in
the wind
falling off
one
by one
as autumn
turns
to winter.

It's winter
now
by old counts
and ours
now too,
but winter
feels
like autumn
still,
and even spring
before it.

Why do the airs
warm our world,
and how long
will it last?

Will I still see
leaves rustle
in the
wind
as I lay
dying?

We need to line up corpses
higher and higher
on the ever-rising pile
with the ever-encroaching hands.
But whose corpses are they?
Ours or theirs?

Does it really matter?

I want to write a poem
but I can’t think of what
to write.
***.

Exhaustion pulls
at my eyes
but fear?
Fear pulls
at my mind.

We won’t be sleeping.

I hate empty space
Lines gone unused
Spots where there could be
But where there is not
For it is so little
I hate this space