To the cashier at Toma Taco who gave me a large Agua de Jamaica instead of the small I ordered
small offerings in winter mornings that feel like fall in Texas
within five minutes I am surrounded by norteños, salsa y amor
your kindness offered the reminder
that our dreams are large
we deserve an abundance
of the agua fresca of our people
ay perdón tu orden estaba para aqui?
I choked on tears of gratitude
no te preoccupes
originally aiming for the library I ordered to-go and found myself planted - sentado en la memoria de la sala
comiendo tacos for breakfast and mi mama's kitchen table talk of growing up on the border en Mexico
we are nopal, stories and spinas rooted
en Tejas, we are everywhere while simultaneously banned everywhere
when a nopal is cut apart - whether with wire or immigrant policy
communities of cells in our bodies come back to our land, regenerating from what our ancestors left us
books cannot contain our histories we grow everywhere - in arid desert, coastal plains, prairie hill country
ban us if it comforts cruelty in settler country
we always come back home
♦♦♦
Today I cried a borderless river with a stranger
strange how we have always been family
from the same place, using the same language, eating the same foods, sharing the same heartbroken grief and undocumented dreams
sharing salsa recipes, sharing agua fresca, sharing stories and poems
I handed her my phone to read the poem she planted in me, a seed that grew through the cracked glass of my phone screen
my voice trembled tripping over spilled spanglish
de donde eres she asked and like her I responded from here and there
creció aqui, raices en tejas y méxico
I felt flattered from her praises of my maybe not so broken spanish
brought my shattered screen of dreams to her coworkers to read
they too sent smiles, eyes of wells, liberated laughter
we exchanged dreams, chocolate, poems, and phone numbers
si necesitas algo digame
but she has already gave me everything I need
a home in community found at Toma taco
