I Am Poem and Place

I AM…

I AM from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I AM also from Cubero, New Mexico, population 250.

I AM from big city lights and small country roads.

Watermelon Mountains, and dusty herds of cattle.

I AM from 4 am commutes to school with my mom, my favorite shotgun rider,

Because I refused to transfer schools when we moved, and she loves me so much.

I AM from no air conditioning and RedBox movies on the living room floor.

I AM from the Downs Racetrack every Saturday with my dad, where I learned to count and lost my second tooth.

I AM from Sunday dinners of dry salmon and canned spinach, but I tell him I like it anyways.

I AM from “your brother’s on the phone, he wants to talk to you”

I AM from watching my sister serve the volleyball backwards during her first game

And smiling from pigtail to pigtail when she accidentally scored her first point.

I AM from Coors and Irving, Cibola High School, and driving 25

Down the long stretch of Loma Larga Rd.

I AM from the Villa de Cubero, where Ernest Hemingway was rumored to have wrote parts of The Man and The Sea,

Cubero Elementary where I worked my first job, and the one restaurant our town has: McDonalds.

I AM from blasting 89.1 New Mexico Music with the windows down.

I AM from a place where “if we tease you, that means we like you”.

I AM from a family of women who are strongminded yet sensitive,

And their generosity is contagious.

I AM from sana sana colita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanaras mañana.

I AM from a broken home, but love fills in the cracks perfectly.