☀ Today's Poem: "The Boy & the Story of Water" Saúl Hernández

   I

There are stories about boys like me who become water
                                        in a bathtub. Sound underwater doesn't travel.

   II
                                        Two truths & a lie:
(1) The Aztec deity of water, Chalchiuhtlicue, released fifty-two years of rain,
                           drowned the fourth sun, created Earth, turned people into fish;
(2) Water has memory;
                                (3) Learning to swim will not help you save a life.

   III

        Apá drives my brother & I to Corpus Christi,
        Lo más importante no es saber nadar        si no como flotar para que no te ahoges.
At the beach, my brother is tall enough to stand
                           in the water. Afraid of the current, I grab on to Apá's waist, but
Apá throws me in. I land near the bottom of the ocean, my body starfish like.
    He pulls me up from the sand,
                    Qué te pasa, debes dejar ir el aire en tu cuerpo.

   IV
                                    Once upon a time in México, Apá & his brother stuffed their lives
into a knockoff JanSport backpack: birth certificates,
                                identifications, pictures, a rosario, one pair of clean clothes,
& a water bottle. Their last night in México, they bended their hands like waves,
                                asked God for a safe crossing into America.
They slept on the benches of the church. In the morning, they set off
                                on a four-day journey up north toward Texas. They forgot to
       calculate how fast water evaporates, the strength of the Rio Grande
                                running to the Gulf, how water swims on your skin,
consumes your body. The river folded & folded & folded his brother's body under its
thickness.
                                Apá learned not all rivers are meant to be crossed.

   V

                        At the Gulf of México, Apá dips his feet in & out of the water, I
wonder if he feels close to México, to his brother. If part of Chalchiuhtlicue's
vengeance is to
turn men into fish, is my Tío out there?

   VI

At the beach, a wave takes my brother in,
Apá sinks his feet into the sand, calls out to my brother.
A white man yanks my brother out.
                          Apá tells my brother, Crees que sabes el camino de la agua, eh?
The white man tells Apá, Why didn't you do something?             Apá freezes, ¿Qué dijo?
                —I tell him what the white man said, Apá buries his feet deeper into the
sand, looks down. I thought all wetbacks knew how to swim,
                        the white man laughs, turns to his friends, points at Apá, Look—
                                        a wetback          who doesn't know              how to swim.

   VII
I have dreams of diving into a pool,
when I pick up my head I'm on the surface of the Gulf of México,
I pull against currents, I hear the man calling Apá wetback,
the closer I get to them the farther the waves push me. I go under.
                                            Water goes inside of me
                                until I know the weight of it. I reach the bottom
of the ocean where I call for my Tío
                                                                           until I become sea foam.