Land of the Cranes Read online

  When I tell Mami,

  Tengo hambre.

  She looks down

  into me,

  Sí, mi amorcito, I am too.

  That’s when I remember

  growing a baby makes

  Mami caterpillar hungry

  and if she forgets to eat

  protein, she gets

  woozy headaches

  and throw-up sick.

  In a cage with what looks

  like thirty mothers and children

  Mami and I find

  a little spot on the concrete floor

  enough for one to sit.

  Mami goes down first, then

  pulls my hand

  pats the space in front of her

  for me to sit between

  her legs.

  She covers us three

  with the silver sheets.

  The others

  watch us, closely

  waiting for us

  while we wait

  patiently

  for them to say

  hello.

  Mami searches the stare of a woman

  opposite us.

  We are eager for a smile

  but that woman is empty of sonrisas

  so Mami looks

  to the next

  and the next

  everyone either too blue or sleepy

  to find a way to make pursed lips

  turn up

  let a sun ray free.

  Slowly cranes begin to lie down

  pull their foil blankets over the

  ghosts of wings,

  arms, legs,

  their children’s too.

  The cold is too prickly to sleep.

  Mami keeps searching for light

  starts to receive shy nods instead

  until finally a woman right next to us

  with three children of her own

  lets an hola

  bloom in her mouth.

  To imagine Papi’s frown

  when he found out

  we weren’t coming, but taken away

  makes me dizzy with sadness.

  I want to think of dulzura

  like Papi always says

  so I imagine we are

  in a backyard ballroom fiesta

  red, yellow, orange, and green

  ribbons shoot through the air

  weave themselves into the cages

  wrapping us warm with waltzing smiles.

  I think of happy Tina

  and my one-day quinceañera

  I think of spelling a spell

  and Virgencita angels with wings

  but the cold breeze

  stops me.

  I squint it away

  and dream of ribbons, again

  but the chill that rips

  up my chicken skin

  reminds me, stronger

  that we are sitting

  in a crowded cell

  my little dulzura, dying.

  She says her name is Josefina Ramírez

  from a fishing town in El Salvador.

  We missed dinner.

  It’s a miserable tray of frozen vomit-like food.

  Tomorrow you will taste it for yourselves.

  She fusses with her baby

  a round-faced brown crane chick

  who scuttles and coughs into her side.

  Is this how I should keep warm?

  She says,

  Pronto, the lights

  will be out for the night.

  But the flashlights will be in our

  faces every hour. I’m not sure

  what they are checking for.

  One thing for sure

  they never make it warm here.

  Her chicks are

  quiet when

  they aren’t coughing.

  Their faces are bright with rashes.

  Their eyes blink like flickers

  while they scratch their heads.

  Their lips are purple blue with cold.

  I pretend I am

  a newborn chick too

  and find the warmest

  place to be beside Mami

  and the egg.

  The crinkle crackle of the blankets

  slowly comes                to a hush after a while

  and I feel Mami crying like others

  but the

  cough

  cough

  cough of

  Josefina’s chicks keep punching

                                          the night

  until that too

  becomes a pounding

  that stones me

  to sleep.

  I dream of Papi

  flying

                                          alongside me.

  His bright black ojos glisten.

  I see his wavy hair

  pushed back by wind.

  Mami is flying too

  the egg under her.

  The park and freeways

  below, cars

  like ants

  we are so high.

  All of us, soaring.

  Then I see him fall

  sudden

  with the sound like a

  firecracker

  so loud it leaves a ringing

  in my ears.

  Then I fall too

  though I flap

  my arms

  in a fever.

  Mami falls

  behind us.

  I scream.

  A wet red dot

  grows in my chest

  which I touch

  with my fingers.

  I sense we’ve

  been shot.

  By men in the mountain

  below

  I can’t see?

  My heart is a speed train

  inside my body

  that bursts me awake.

  Then, I see the safety pin

  that holds Papi’s pillow square

  is poking me and

  draws blood.

  I’m lying next to Mami

  on the concrete floor.

  My panza mumble grumbles

  and my throat

  feels like there’s

  a big ol’ grapefruit

  stuck behind my

  tongue.

  The lights come on

  inside this cage

  and a mass of silver

  foil blankets

  begins to stir

  in the ever cold

  of this hielera.

  This is Yanela, Carlos,

  and baby Jakeline,

  says the mama crane

  who spoke to us last night.

  I sit up next to Mami

  shiver as I lean into her

  and notice their brown faces

  soft, in the glowing white light.

  I see the shape of their

  broken wings

  whose tips they use

  to                                                scratch

  scratch

  scratch

  their heads.

  Josefina pulls lil’ Jakie

  next to her and begins

  sorting through her hair.

  I scratch, feeling all

  of a sudden an itch

  on my own head too.

  Mami combs down my feathers

  with her hands while we

  listen to Josefina tell us

  how they got here.

  Things were so hard, bien duras, in El Salvador.

  I had a food cart where I sold pupusas I made myself.

  The marreros came and asked me to pay rent every month or else they would hurt my children. I paid the first month but the next month when I didn’t want to p
ay, they beat me right in front of baby Jakie and said they knew where Yanela and Carlos went to school. So I paid again though it left nothing for our expenses. Then I saw them kill a man for not paying the rent on his cart. I knew we would be next. We left that night. We hid in another town with my aunt. My mother sent us the money to pay the coyote to bring us to the border to turn ourselves in. But they locked us up behind these fences. Trapped like animals when all we wanted was a little help.

  As we listen

  the baby is now free-falling into

  the older girl’s arms and giggles

  so sweetly, but her sister

  doesn’t break a smile.

  Carlos, the boy, sways side to side

  like he’s almost dancing

  with a scowl at me

  folded into

  the raisin of

  his thumb-sucking

  face.

  When Mami shares

  how we ended up here

  she holds me closer.

  I try to tell Josefina about cranes

  but Mami hushes me.

  She whispers

  to try not to cry.

  Josefina shakes her head

  while Mami talks

  wrinkles her lips tight

  tries to calm Jakie on her

  lap again and keeps

  dipping into the baby’s head.

  Then, as if she’s caught something

  between two nails

  she presses until something

  tiny, so very tiny, pops.

  What was that?

  She half smiles like she

  feels sorry for me

  because I don’t know.

  Son piojos.

  Lice are little bugs

  people sometimes get.

  Give it a few days here, mi’ja,

  and you’ll have them too.

  Carlos squints

  at me, pulls the thumb he’s been

  sucking out of his mouth,

  and lets out a cackle.

  The stinker.

  Yanela, the girl,

  looks down

  the entire time.

  She droops sad

  like wilted flowers.

  I offer a smile to Yanela

  to try to grow dulzura

  in a girl who could be my age

  who could be a friend?

  Her expression is

  as still as steel.

  Josefina sees me

  reaching

  into the soil of her daughter

  wanting to plant a friendship.

  She lifts Yanela’s chin

  for a second

  but as soon as she lets go

  Yanela’s head buries

  down

  into the ground

  like lead again.

  Josefina takes a shallow breath

  and wants to smile at us

  but it is chased away

  by her own gloomy voice

  as she unravels more

  of her story like yarn.

  They took my niños from me

  days after we arrived here the first time.

  They called it “zero tolerance.”

  I’ll never forget how they cried

  as they pulled them away

  with so much fear inside their tears

  I could do nothing about.

  Though I begged, day and night,

  to have them back

  they kept them from me for two months.

  The longest, most painful days of my life.

  I didn’t know if I would ever see them again.

  I don’t know where they took them

  or what they did to them.

  I know one thing.

  They were different children

  when they finally gave them back.

  They deported us to Tijuana the next day.

  Now they caught us on our second try

  to get to Los Angeles, where my sister

  is waiting and has a place for us.

              Qué pena, Josefina, I’m so sorry.

  Mami taps the back of her hand gently.

  Yanela pulls baby Jakie

  onto her lap, circles her arms

  around her sister, lightly

  lays her forehead

  on top of the baby’s head

  like she wants to hide.

  Baby Jakie wiggles her head

  back and kisses Yanela on

  the bottom of her chin.

  I wrap the vines of my arms

  around Mami’s steady leg

  so afraid this hurt

  will happen to us        too.

  I hear the unlocking of the gate

  turn to see two guards with a cart.

  One guard yells,

  Burros, time to eat!

  They called us donkeys, Mami,

  I say to her in disbelief.

  Though I’m starving

  I grimace at them

  but Mami wipes my face

  gently with her hand.

  I know she is hungry

  by the way

  she swallows slowly.

  We line up to be served

  a cardboard tray

  holding a burrito

  moldy and half-frozen.

  Exactly how it feels

  to be inside this prison.

  I make a game

  all by myself

  with the cardboard tray

  and the paper napkins

  I keep.

  I suck on small wads of paper

  roll and mush them

  into the shape of a bird

  moist with my spit.

  I pretend the tray

  is a boat that sails

  no

  a nest.

  I lay

  the bird down

  then stuff beneath

  its little tail

  a perfect oval egg.

  Then I make a doll

  whose legs I curl

  beneath the bird

  and turn her

  face    up

  to look for

  the bluest blue

  in the sky.

  I catch Yanela

  looking too

  so I mash together

  another doll.

  When I hold it up

  to give to her

  she turns

  the other way.

  One guard’s green-gray eyes are

  a snake’s slithering in the grass.

  He is not feathered.

  He is not scared.

  He is not caged.

  He patrols and moves

  his overgrown body through us

  over and around us.

  Circling.

  Watching.

  A badge with the name “J. Stevens”

  like a dangerous mark

  across his vest.

  A gun holster like a rattle

  shaking with each step.

  He calls us burros, again.

  Donkeys, but really it means stupid.

  A word so hurtful Mami never

  ever lets me use it.

  Don’t whine, burros, we saved you from the desert.

  He says it in perfectly

  round Spanish

  the kind of Spanish

  that makes you want to

  trust

  because it is the Spanish

  of Mami’s songs

  and Papi’s stories.

  I can’t get past

  those beady eyes

  and the hiss that hides

  in every order

  he gives.

  Half a concrete wall covers a corner of the cage.

  Every now and then I see people go in and out.

  A toilet flushes and leaves a bitter smell

  tells us someone just went.

  Mami tells me, It is okay to go.

  She’s gone twice in the night

 
’cause the egg pushes down on her bladder.

  I don’t want everyone

  to hear me

  or smell me go

  so I hold it

  both number one and number two

  until my panza hurts

  and I cry as Mami

  pulls me through

  the cell to the toilet corner

  so embarrassed

  I bury my face

  in my arm.

  the toilet is piled high and

  overflowing

  with wads of toilet paper

  from everyone’s wipes.

  The stink stings my nose.

  Mami moves to push

  the paper pile down

  into the can

  with her foot

  then wraps some paper

  around her hands

  and picks up

  the other toilet paper wads

  on the floor.

  I’ll help you, I say

  covering one hand

  and with the other

  plugging my nose

  with the tips

  of my fingers.

  I notice some of the stains

  peeking through

  are red.

  What’s that, Mami?

  That’s blood from women

  and girls on their regla.

  I remember about

  the cycles Mami told me

  will one day

  come to me too.

  Pobres, looks like they are

  using toilet paper for their necesidades.

  We try to wash our hands

  but the sink only drops

  big drips of water.

  Real rays, sun and sky

  speckled by clouds

  are a relief from

  the freezing cold.

  I hold Mami’s hand

  and whisper

  Mami, let’s fly

  but she looks

  at me with the saddest ojitos.

  We can’t, Betita, remember

  our wings have been clipped.

  In the light, I can’t believe how huge

  the white freezing monster is from outside.

  I notice all of the fences

  the guards at the edges

  their guns ready on their belts

  to stop us from leaving?

  Let’s walk, mi’ja, get as warm as you can.

  We walk past a group of kids

  rubbing rocks on the ground

  like chalk

  and I wish to

  draw something

  write something

  something big

  an S.O.S.

  a picture poem

  maybe somebody will see

  it and get us

  out of here.

  Maybe?

  But I don’t want to leave Mami’s side for one second.

  Mami sings while we walk

  and I join in the smallest voice.

  We move fast, so fast

  sweat bunches up on our foreheads

  until it is time to file back in.