PRACTICE
The boss, the gordo in Los Gordos. Rolly polly jolly
man scribbles orders of comida corrida and asks,
where are you from?, pointing at me,
smiling at me, expecting an answer
like Oaxaca or Chiapas or some other
plot of land located in the interior part of Mexico
where Indios sleep under trees, dressed
in white pants and white guayaberas, barefoot.
Or maybe he wanted me to be an Apache
princess riding a pinto horse bareback,
braving the white man
like Pocahontas [but not like la Malinche].
Texas, I say,
tracing the state in the air.
[I taught myself to pronounce Texas high and long when I was five years old. TEX-US. I practiced and practiced so I could say it the same way the little white kids did at Lucky You Preschool. I never forgot that. Never forgot that to pronunciate and to imitate is to survive. I never forgot the way Oscar died, refusing to pronounce and imitate Texas as anything except Tejas until his truck chickened out along the FM road, his own face as wide and brown as mine. For us both, it will always be fight or flight. And forgetting is always forgiving and I shall never forget because I stood at his graveside, staring down into the six foot hole at burial. My soul tumbled into his grave, clacking like beads gunshot against a closed casket.]
We might have been brothers, I told the man.
It was true.
Babel separated us.