These houses raised me,
teaching me to see the world through bifocals:
The house on Brooklyn,
where we defrosted the Thanksgiving turkey for mole
by throwing it up and down the stairs.
In the Buena Vista Migrant Camp,
a man fried eggs on his motor every morning.
There, at eight years old, I was the only licensed childcare provider.
The house on Privada de Volantín
gave me a kiss when I was twelve
that has lasted a lifetime.
There, among the other miracles of my life,
I learned that jello can survive outside the fridge.
Near the owner’s house, in the apple orchards,
I learned to cover my mouth before dirt
made it its property.
In Ciudad Juárez, my mother made water
and food out of sand, with only her love
and a transistor radio.
On Juan N. Zubirán, where our house
was lower down than the rest,
I learned that dignity
is carried mostly by the neck.
In El Rancho, in Mexico,
I learned to kill a pig with a knitting needle
by going for his heart,
and in Chicago, I learned that a pig can kill you.
At Campus Road in LA, in Ray Otero’s sociology class,
I learned success is not about “The Color Game,”
but whether or not you have a car.
At 22 Sudden, in Watsonville, children
were having children,
desperate to birth the fruit
of their parents’ wishes.
On Bronte, in California, I sang to pray, and sang to eat,
and sang to drink a better part of myself,
while Mamá began to die through her breast,
that monument all its own, that container of pesticides
from the broccoli, cauliflower, apples,
strawberries, blackberries,
and peaches eaten on the line.
Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs