Vocabulary Lessons

Barely a whisper on the lips; the difference

between paranoia and cautiousness is epigenetic,

it’s passed down like a dream, how we watch

the street with eyes como un halcón. I did not

get my mother’s freckles but I was blessed

with her memory of neighbors slain and dumped

on the side of the road as she walked barefoot

en el sol y el calor of the baked dirt road with the day’s

water balanced on her head; I got her curly hair,

the way I check the windows, check the door;

check the windows, check the door;

check the windows, check the door—

In stuttering Spanish I have explained to her the idea

of inter-generational trauma and she smiled

like she understood even though the words

I had used were all wrong; a murmur, now.

Maybe she thinks about how the roads may be paved

here, but we’ve heard el aplauso of pistolas

she thought she had left behind. She wonders if anyone

has asked the kids on the streets what they think

about that, about passing the ‘hood to their kids.

¿Y qué piensan ellos de eso? ¿Qué piensan ellos?

We have tried to bury the past in shallow graves

on the side of unmarked roads in the damp heat

of Salvadorian summers, and we have tried to leave

possibilities haunt us into questions we do not dare

to ask. We walk a different road to get home

than the one used to get there; I see the things that haunt

my mother, those she translates into tales

as if purging them of reality will set these malevolent

spirits at ease but there are always women weeping

in the waters, asking where their children are.

The difference between paranoid and cautious,

I tell my mother, letting this interwoven

essay of quick Spanish and clunky English sit

between us; another haunt. La diferencia, le digo,

is that one is for someone that fears what can

happen, and one is for those that fear what may

happen because they’ve seen it happen before. One

is in your head, the other is in your blood, in your skin,

in the way you watch the cars that slow down,

the ones that circle around you; you recognize

the predators, and you understand that in life

there is no in-between. You are haunted, or you haunt.

You either learn from the stories or you become them.