Tres Lágrimas

By Suzannah Van Gelder

the air in paradise tastes the same but is easier to inhale. where the sun and su propio reflección bend over the countryside     i am there too. clumsy and unsure my tongue stumbles over the old stone streets of a language that i borrow i pass through with child’s skill and childlike wonder    as the heart drums a beat of longing and belonging that the mind cannot follow.     plazas que están llenados con personas cathedrals occupied by tourists and fools and worshippers alike     bones of a colonizer exalted by the insensible (and insensitive) where outside las fuentes offer water to cleanse our sins.     La Giralda only spins in place, its watchful eye on the three kings’ day parade the street musicians las cucarachas the stranger dreaming in a foreign and familiar land     knows the same sun that glows over Sevilla burns above all else. it is el mismo sol y la misma persona that constructed el paraíso to be a place in España. this world only spins in place     y yo, I cry one tear for realized dreams one tear for leaving y una lágrima for losing the specific and unchanging sun.