Where I am from

“a mirror to the front of me/and an ocean behind,/I lay wedged in the middle of daylight,/paper-doll thin, dreaming,/then I vanished. I gave the day a fingerprint,/then forgot” – Carmen Gimenez Smith

I’ve battled with the image of El Salvador, of Guatemala.

My father has created several paintings in our house

of his homeland. The truth is that this places live in mosaics

of green, mango orange, and sky blue water.

My mother picks up leaves around our block

in an effort to remember the leaves she pressed

down into a pit and bounced on top of.

Or to remember its width she recalls

the size of the leaves, palm size, 
now I become part of that moment.

To say I am from my parents countries

is abstraction. In my mind lie landscapes 
that hold secrets in the pockets of craters, 
in the bag of a volcano

holding forth its true voice.
Sharp, deep and haunting. 
The one thing I try is to hold onto, 
with a thing thread:  where I am from. 
Through the eyes, their hands, and whispers
of my parents.

At times dreaming of belonging to these lands

is important. The mystery of sitting on the stump

found along a dirt road in El Progreso, Guatemala. 
The dirt-heavy scent I can only imagine.
Then the wonder about how tall cornfields may 
be in El Salvador. How they stand tall, 
and if maybe they bend. Or do they billow beneath
the bodies of woman hiding from the sun.