Firebreather

by Emely Rodriguez

I look like my mother, my tías say.
Pero si fuera gringa.
It’s written in my DNA.
I’m okay with that.
Time is all I needed to see
my context
will always be
in nationality.
I will never understand
how my mother’s childhood
was raising chickens as pets
until pollo was ready to eat;
How survival was in the land,
harvest and respect,
the elixir of life
Their bodies full of ancestral wisdom,
salvadoreño, todopoderoso.
No matter how deep
I sink my hands
into land,
I will never reach
la patria.

I am anatomically wrong
for her,
I don’t belong to her,
but her tierra
still saturates me.
Patria’s people breathing fire—
Y mis palabras siempre
se han consumido
en llamas.