Issue 02: Relationships

a poem for my grandchild not yet my grandchild

Anyély Gómez-Dickerson

dear little one,

one day you’ll be asked where you’re from

one day you’ll be asked what you are

& to those and all questions

you will hold your head high

& say:

i am from corn bread & sugar cane fields

from the anguish & guilt of ancestral sin cultivated

in plantations because i am from rumba & the cords

of old gitano guitars that fuse with my hip hop

& R&B with my Barry Manilow & Celia Cruz

i am from the Missouri barbecued meats of southern

cookhouses & plátanos y sofrito del campesino Cubano

& Mayflower parcels that became our American apple pie

& my very own blend of spaghetti & meat sauce

& Ramen noodles i loved throughout college

& you will say these things because

you are from everywhere & made of everything

imbued with the power & beauty & knowledge

of all things capable of all things & able to be all the things

simply because you are because you can & will because you

are not from here or there, you are everywhere you want to be

& i will rock you into lullabies on that rocking chair

out on the porch that faces south toward our ancestors

& there you’ll sing with me the songs of their yesterdays

& your tomorrows because you can & will

be anything & everything you wanna be