I’ve returned from the question the motherland
a continually illegitimate relationship
I’m a pretend immigrant afraid of coats and the cold
stunned by space and the sun up in the face
landlocked behind the barbed wire of mama’s house
what did I do there scratch twitch stare
wandered with a prima and her daughters
was asked about the prima who should have been there
she left the world after her mama mi tía se fue
nadie era nadie en esa casa only the men
it made my mama sick to see me leave
into the hot night of her origins
I return for the right to walk in the dark
like the black cat family
that roamed our alley in the valley of Sula
if I woke up at a decent hour I caught the colibrí
little brown red god came around 9 10am
humming into a tree of little red stems
never know names
a place of teeny overlooked gods
I drank tea at the white iron table
another tía gave mama they got on so well
about their nests in the capital of slurs
will I be the only bird to be about the tree
last one flitting do we want me to be
Copyright © 2024 by Sheila Maldonado. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 20, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.