[1st] Upon Arrival
Drowning upon arrival is the worst story.
//
Always drowning. C’mon. C’mon. They tongue-tied the oxygen. Move along. We left our homes. Went on the trail. Some escaped to the mountains. They read 3,000, no 4,000, no 5,000. 6,000+ more likely. Died. Tsali will tell them that it was a stampede of death. The river wanted to be fed. So they gave it our skin. It wasn’t a wager at all. They said. Sure. Sure. To the river. What were you nursing here? Let it be under water.
//
But no one had to tell us. We just knew. You’re dead if you look them in the eyes. You’re dead if you leave town and go on the trail. But you’re dead anyway, if you stay. They don’t even tug at their suits. When they circle back to the rivers of our loss. We don’t want your kind here. We don’t want your language here. We don’t want your ways here. We don’t want you here. On earth. Go to another planet. And hope that we will not land there.
//
Some settled in Oklahoma. Arizona. New Mexico. We left. We left our clay pots, black-on-black. What would María Martínez have told us? They were things meant to be carried. Now, they had a good view of the soldiers’ boots. We left before the river claimed more bodies. No bodies, no cry. We left before the river became a secret book with deadbolt bones. We left. That when said. We would not disturb the river. Even if they gave it back to us.
Dorsía Smith Silva is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, and full professor at the University of Puerto Rico. Her poetry is forthcoming in The Minnesota Review, The Offing, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. She has a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature and posts at @DSmithSilva.
Header photo by Zack Frank, courtesy Shutterstock.
