Emily Campbell —13 Laura Santos

n-400: sweaty hotdog yanqui oath

By Laura Santos

abuela, just did the citizen’s oath.

revoke association to all home i’ve known, still wonder why i can’t fit their box. greengos refuse to taste my full name as if laced with bitter quinbombo. what’s a family name when they ripped apart my own?

write place of birth, don’t fit? cut it off. choke on the letters of my conquistador-baptized home: Puerto Cortés. proud murder capital of the world, ten years in a row. final last name: somoHano. pero ¿quienes somos? soy the $20 prepaid calls, dime of minutes hostage by censorphone. i’m the when are you visiting? can’t know. embargo clearance won’t show.

became a citizen abjuring allegiance to identity. assimilate at the price of bland food n once-a-year provision visits yet, i yearn for the inciendary scent of poor venezuelan gasolina. anhelo jumping on papi’s 1964 german-soviet moto sidecar anxious to rearrange my spine w the cracking asphalt down zapata or tulipan don’t tell uscis i hanker to drown in flooded tropical potholes n plátanos podridos

chicharrón de viento tongue will never swear patria o muerte again, nunca seré como el Ché abuela, n-400 hotdog oath i swore, why can’t i cramp my foreign limbs inside their box?