When They Ask

graphic by kayleigh woltal

From my mother and my mother’s mother and the sandy, dusty soil of South Texas.
From border hoppers and rough hands and teenage marriages.

I am from Brahma cows and racing horses.
Mesquite trees.
Pairs of lucky elephant figurines.

“We never crossed the border; the border crossed us,”
My mother and her sister’s chorus
Our ancestors owned this land before them.
Robamos esta tierra antes que ellos.

Our identities have been a revolving door
and I’ve become dizzy spinning. the blindfold given to me
I cannot tell that this is the same soil
we stood on for centuries.

I grip my heritage with my teeth
as I did to Grandma’s sugar cane. 
Sucking hard
for remnant sweetness.
I know it’s still there.
We’ve been here.

When they ask —
Mama grips my hand, her ring stings my tiny fingers
“We’re from here.”
And we leave.