Clap When You Land(3)

My plan has always been to apply to

& attend Columbia University.

I told Papi last year this dream of premed, at that prestigious university, in the heart of the city that he calls home. & he laughed.

He said I could be a doctor here. He said

it’d be better for me to visit Colombia the country than for him to spend money at another fancy school.

I did not laugh with him. He must have realized his laugh was like one of those paper shredders making a sad confetti of my hopes.

He did not apologize.





It is a mistake, I know.

A plane did not crash.

My father’s plane did not fall.

& if, if, a plane did fall of course my father

could not have been on it.

He would have known

that metal husk was ill-fated.

Tía’s Saints would have warned him.

It would be like in the movies, where the taxi makes a wrong turn, or mysteriously the alarm does not go off & Papi would be scrambling to get to the airport only to learn he had been saved. Saved.

This is what I think the whole long walk home.

For four miles I scan the road & ignore catcalls. I know Don Mateo would come back to get me if I called, but I feel frozen from the inside out. The only things working are my feet moving forward & my mind outracing my feet.

I create scenario after scenario; I damn everyone else on that flight but save my father in my imagination.

I ignore the news alerts

coming through on my phone.

I do not check social media.

Once I get to my callejón, I smile at the neighbors

& blow kisses at Vira Lata.

It isn’t true, you see?

My father was not on that plane.

I refuse.





Papi boards the same flight every year.

Tía & I are like the hands of a clock: we circle our purpose around his arrival.

We prepare for his exaggerated stories of businesspeople who harrumph over tomato juice & flight attendants who sneak winks at him.

He never sleeps on flights, instead plays chess on his tablet.

He got me one for my birthday last year, & before he boarded his flight this morning we video-chatted.

They’re saying it’s too early to know about survivors.

I am so accustomed to his absence

that this feels more like delay than death.

By the time I get home, Tía has heard the news.

She holds me tight & rocks me back & forth, I do not join her in moaning ay ay ay.

I am stiff as a soiled rag that’s been left in the sun.

Tía says I’m in shock. & I think she is right.

I feel just like I’ve been struck by lightning.

When a neighbor arrives, Tía lets me go.

I sit on el balcón & rock myself in Papi’s favorite chair.

When Tía goes to bed, I go stand in front of the altar she’s dedicated to our ancestors. It’s an old chest, covered in white cloth that sits behind our dining room table.

It’s one of the places where we pray & put our offerings.

I sneak one of the cigars Tía has left there. I carefully cut the tip, strike a match, & for a moment consider kissing that small blue flame. I lift my mouth to the cigar. Inhale.

Hold the smoke hard in my lungs

until the pain squeezes sharp in my chest & I cough & cough & cough,

gasping for breath,

tears springing to my eyes.

I rock rock rock until the sun creaks over the tree line.

I listen for the whine of a taxi motor,

for Papi’s loud bark of a laugh, his air-disrupting voice saying how damn happy

he is to finally be home—

Knowing I’ll never hear any of his sounds again.





Camino Yahaira


When you learn life-altering news

you’re often in the most basic of places.

I am at lunch, sitting in the corner with Andrea— or Dre, although I’m the only person who calls her that.

She is telling me about the climate-change protest while I flip through a magazine.

Dre is outlining where she’ll be meeting the organizers & the demands they’ll be making at city hall when Ms. Santos’s crackling voice

pushes through the loudspeaker:

Yahaira Rios. Yahaira Rios.

Please report to the main office.

I feel every eye in the cafeteria turn to me.

I hand the magazine to Dre, reminding her not to dog-ear any of the pages

since it belongs to the library.

I grab a pass from the teacher on lunch duty, but Mr. Henry, the security guard, smiles when I flash it his way,

“I heard them call you, girl.

Not like you would be cutting nohow.”

I hold back a sigh. On the chessboard I used to be known for my risk taking.

But in real life? I’m predictable: I follow directions when they are given & rarely break the rules.

I hang out every Saturday with Dre,

watching Netflix or reading fashion blogs or if she’s in charge of our entertainment, watching gardening tutorials on YouTube (which I pretend to understand

simply because anything she loves

I love to watch her watch).

Teachers’ progress reports