(patos y mojados)
the first time i heard wetback, i thought ducks?
i practiced the line from bill to head to tail.
if waves represented water no tenía que dibujar patas.
.
years later i came home from dress rehearsal for Annie
with two baby mallards and dressed like an orphan.
.
no quería preguntar papá: how do orphans dress?
aunque creció en un orfanato.
.
my best attempt was ponytails, one higher than the other,
a sweater buttoned crookedly over a Stray Cats t-shirt,
mismatched socks, old shoes.
.
at school they used pato as a gay slur. clumsy on land, dijeron.
when i heard mojados, i thought: we say this about ourselves?
.
papá asked: how do you expect ducklings to live in the desert?
feathers can get waterlogged without access to agua. mucous
membranes dry out, making patitos ansiosos, destructivos.
.
can’t you make them a pond?
he’d built a deck with removable slats to invite or ignore sun.
.
i stood on a ladder balancing lumber on my head,
back wet with sweat, while he hammered boards into place.
.
the TV image of ‘us’ went from lazy, siesta in the sun to:
busy bordercrossing job stealers.
.
papá dug a hole and lined it with cement. he sealed it,
a barrier between earth and water. mis patitos splashed around
and shat green, the color of their hoods, on the redwood deck.
.
we studied flight patterns in endless, borderless skies
the way travelers study maps.
(i crossed the border many times and never got wet.)
.
by the time we released them in the park, my ducks were fatter
than the others. (some fathers never forgive daughters
for growing up.)
.
papá smashed up the concrete and hauled it to the dump.
en primavera we returned to the park and tried to spot our ducks,
but by then it was impossible.