glorieta / guadalajara by Sarah Yanni
the capital is full of Americans
with parks named after words they can’t pronounce
somewhere in a central city I consider belonging
those diasporic blues so over-written
but somehow I still feel them
age hasn’t given me wisdom, just clarification
in my mother’s country I move as through an aperture
tight zoom, less fruity
if I had a girlfriend I’d be scared to hold her hand
the practical vanishing / needed to remain intact
rounded green lawns where my father proposed
I walk them in circles
heart caught on terraced homes, sunbleached and happy
I don’t want to think about safety / I just want
to buy fruit
tell the tourists the juice is like angelic nectar
partly mine but never theirs
(7/13/24)
Sarah Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer and editor. A Best of the Net nominee, she has been recognized as a finalist for BOMB Magazine’s poetry contest, the Letras Latinas Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, The Outpost Fellowship and others. Her work has appeared in outlets including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Mizna, Spectra Poets and Autostraddle. She lives in Los Angeles.