When My Partner Asks Me about Immigration Reform
When we talk about deportation
what we're really talking about are miles
put between blood. We talk about takeoffs
and landings, of how you’ve grown,
of how you’ve aged, of how death
becomes a phone call at 3 a.m., a sea
between us, the rustle of my sheets.
I say it's like the self is doubled
except there is no meeting
point for either of those selves.
You will always be aimless,
you will always feel as if you
left the stove on in your apartment.
I was once instructed to create
my own language, and I said
I would create the language
of Fuck you, Don't Toy With Me.
what we're really talking about are miles
put between blood. We talk about takeoffs
and landings, of how you’ve grown,
of how you’ve aged, of how death
becomes a phone call at 3 a.m., a sea
between us, the rustle of my sheets.
I say it's like the self is doubled
except there is no meeting
point for either of those selves.
You will always be aimless,
you will always feel as if you
left the stove on in your apartment.
I was once instructed to create
my own language, and I said
I would create the language
of Fuck you, Don't Toy With Me.
Eva Maria Saavedra is a Peruvian-American poet, educator, and mother born and raised in New Jersey where she currently resides with her infant son, Mateo Rafael. She writes about being First-generation American, a Latinx woman, and a single mother. She received a BA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in writing and translation from Columbia's School of the Arts. Her chapbook, Thirst, was selected by Marilyn Hacker for the Poetry Society of America's 2014 New York Chapbook Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in Callaloo, The Acentos Review, and Apogee Journal. She’s working on her first full-length manuscript of poems.
Art: Molly Dunham