Table of Contents
i
Born at the Circus 2
I'm Asked About Home 3
Bisabuela Married a Spaniard 4
Where I Inheret My Silence 5
Nopal en el Frente 7
History of Walls 8
Driving Down Highway 111 9
His Jawbone Caged My Grandfather's Skin 10
Watching The Green Mile for the First Time & I Dream That Night Knowing John Coffey Could Have Also Been My Father 11
Arrival 12
I Watch All the Drought the Desert Carries 13
Everything Dies Here 14
In Praise of Snow 15
Christmas 16
Tenochtitlan 17
ii
I Once Cracked Open the Earth 20
Hija de la Cosecha 21
The Time My Momma Gave Me the Chancla for Letting Andrew Jackson Escape Out the Window 22
Momma Knows All the Monsters' Hidden Teeth 23
I Learned to Tiptoe for: 24
In A Dream a Small Statue of La Virgen de Guadalupe Prepares to Dive from the Bookshelf 25
El Rancho 92' 26
Truths at the All-American Canal 27
A Lesson in Sewing 28
Abuela is a Machete Wrapped in Her Favorite Apron 29
A Brown Girl's Blues 30
Abuela's Hair 31
False Security: A Story Told from Eve's Ribcage 32
Leaked Audio from a Detention Center 33
iii
Don't be Afraid to Speak: 36
Metamorphosis for Speaking Spanish 37
Parts & Definitions for Mestiza-Mouth 38
Chicana Learns Survival from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 39
Safe House 40
This Skin Be 41
Zoo of Eden 42
Deity 44
What Becomes of War & Name 46
The First Time I Met the KKK 47
My Country is Panting 48
Dinner with Cornel West 49
A Spanish to English Translation on Sweet Things Gone Sour 50
Explosions Ripped Through a Fireworks Market North of Mexico City on Tuesday Killing at Least 35 People 51
How to be a Ghost on Earth 52
Synonyms for Donald Trump 54
To Understand Border 55
iv
Notes on How to Pull Apart the Earth 58
Surviving the Flood 62
La Llorona Retires the Hollering from Her Ears 63
Reincarnation 64
Where the Wild Tongues Are 65
Calexico 66
Leaving 68
Holding the Night Sky 69
Prayer 70
Gathering the Fragments 71
