They did not teach her her tongue
she was tongueless
mute to her past
she was taught the language of those who came and settled upon the land
seeking to own the living
breathing
slow moving earth

her half moon earrings were just hand me downs from her family
the art of her people
their prestige as artisans a quiet story tucked within the hands who made them are speechless to her now
...
Two crescent moons stacked smiling upwards–
I look for these earrings often but I cannot find them Or the fishes...or the face of her mother or the scent of Janitzio
some days I feel like that very    
                          
                          isl­and

disconnected from everything and surrounded by water
And I feel like fire burning at foot of a lake
and I want to push back the night but then all of a sudden
there are humming birds who hover over me (a shift of existence) as I become the wind under their wings
and I take after their countless legends of mermaids
Eréndira’s tears lay salty on my tongue   
and I will myself through the fright and the this plague –that bore semblance to the time her people died and dropped like flies
from small pox their bodies surrendering to disease–
to dive into this water and swim
through the vast expanse of hurt
I swim through these fictitious tales of separation
of the illusion of the “other”
of the resistance to understand and mesh cultures 
I swim past these notions of perpetuating intolerance ...
past the use of  “other”
Until I reach my own shore
my own place of being
And there I release and heal all misery
and cleanse my heart and soul

there I sink my teeth deep into this bread of words
“I will not perpetuate more sorrow in my life”

everything that is a chain
I free myself from
everything that does not love has love destined for something else
but this small beating mass in my chest
is mine to nourish and to love

I  surpasses the violence of the collision of words and I bear fruit