SUITCASE of ONE
Saying goodbye in 1979,
We left our motherland
And father behind.
“Will we ever see you alive, again,
And feel your fraternal embrace?
“And if not, how long before
We forget the sound of your voice,
Your high cheekbones
And fearless face?”
Courage and Strength
Led you by your fists
To stay and fight contra
Communism and Atheism,
All for freedom—
Freedom of Faith,
Family and Individualism.
Packing for three
In a suitcase of one,
My mother, brother, and I
Piled into cramped space
Liked frightened cattle,
Leaving the Latino race
Of our ancestors and anarchists,
Nicaraguan realists and idealists,
Behind.
“Will we make it to America, Mama?
And if so, how will we survive
Its political drama,
Which, in time,
Will recreate
The hate
We fought so hard to escape?”
Courage and Strength
Motivated your maternality
To sustain us
Not by begging
But making masa
For nacatamales,
Wrapped in banana leaves
To sell on the streets
Of New Orleans.
Crying for normalcy and belonging
In a country that doesn’t
Recognize my sadness,
Only my immigrant status,
I fail to make eye contact
With trust-fund Whites—
Tomorrow’s Tycoons of Industry,
Tomorrow’s Great Gatsby socialites.
“Will I survive in this strange land
Of liberty and opportunity,
“While I stumble my words with broken Englishy,
Wishing I’d been fluent in friendship,
Wishing I’d been a better brother,
Feeling always like the minority?”
Courage and Strength
Now call on me.
Together they tuck me in
And lull me to sleep at night
With a soft coo
That soothes my memories
Of the (deceptive) destruction
A civil war had
On my proud Hispanic family,
A war that crafted
A cultural dissonance within me,
A war that made me who I am today—
A warrior poet of Freedom and Truth,
A voice for the forgotten,
A voice for today’s disgruntled youth.