Saltbodies

i am singing a song that can only be born
after losing a country.

Joy Harjo

when salt meets water,
it becomes an ocean

when an ocean meets land,
it becomes a country

it takes a man to deny his country
uproot every lingo reminding
he belongs here, among a mass of homeless
boys
in the vagrant heart of Plateau.

stinking hospitals built for recluse
cathedrals where mass is an etymology
of the word massacre.

in Rio Grande, illegal bodies smuggled into cargoes
collected by the sinkhole sea

& who are minors if not children
pirouetting the strait of Gilbratar.

see, i have no love for this place
since losing homies to brutality,
countless odysseys, strangers washing tongues
into the sink after learning
there are several homes in this land
but none of them can be called a homeland.

in America, a man who has found refuge
is a river whose dunes has been erased by drought
& not forgetfulness.

forgetfulness is not the absence of memory
it is how you know
a country is killing you slowly.