for Col. Alberto Donoso Darquea

My grandfather said I was too old for Kinder eggs

or maybe forgot to buy one

more. So I climbed up the avocado tree,

watched my cousins—faces marked

with chocolate adoration—delight

in plastic treasures and running

in the sun, at home inside begotten

bones, in skin no other sun had touched.

The immigrant accumulates things

to replace what she has lost—

climbing into grandfather’s

lap on Sunday mornings

peeling the mandarin to find

herself of that very earth.

I returned home to find the mandarins

eaten, the berries picked and stored,

to find white lilies blooming

at his grave.

I keep collecting words, paper scraps

and foreign fruits. I strain to hear

his voice—in the slicing of an orange,

the planting of its seeds.