(after Mario Meléndez)

My native soil was created from tiny sparks
that clung to grandmother’s earthen pot
which conjured savoury dishes
I’ve been looking for
all my life in vain.

My homeland has no boundaries.
At cockcrow one day it found itself
inside a country to its west,
(on rainy days it dreams looking east
when its seditionists fight to liberate it from truth.)

My people have disinterred their alphabet,
burnt down decrepit libraries
in a last puff of nationalism
even as a hairstyle of native women
have been allowed to become extinct.

My native place has not been christened yet
my homeland, a travelogue without end,
a plate that will always be greedy
(but got rice mixed with stones)

My home has young people
who found their dreams in a white substance
and the old that transplanted their eyes,
it has leaders who have disappeared
into their caricatures.

My home is a gun
pressed against both temples
a knock on a night that has not ended
a torch lit long after the theft
a sonnet about body counts
undoubtedly raped
definitely abandoned
in a tryst with destiny.