Trinidad & Roberto

By Niki Esko

They didn’t want to hold you.

They felt too attached. Too dirty with poverty.

A fishnet was my first crib.

Its ends attached to the corners

Of our one room shack. Torn fibers hung

Low and dusted the grainy floor

Lightly scraping

Against the wooden planks—shk, shk, shk—

My first lullaby.

Born beside the roar of a waterfall

That poured into the ocean

During the rainy season,

When the fish could not be caught,

My lungs filled with the despair of a barren sea,

Then collapsed like old boats beneath the falling water.

Until this day, my tears taste like the tropical salts

Of our front yard.

Two small graves rested behind some banana trees

Between our plot and the neighbor’s.

My brother and sister’s bodies nurtured the green-black fruit

And the trees’ broad leaves sheltered my parents

As my new parents walked away with me

In their clean arms to a sparkling new shore

Thousands of miles

And a thousand cries

Away

From the heat

And suffocation

Of begging fists.