not in your body

You are not located in this body

You don’t mean this in a new age kind of way

Maybe it’s best to say

that you are not located in this body, alone

You are located in your mother

waking before work & school

waking before you are even a thought

to ready the day ahead

In the steps it takes to get to the corner store

to pick up bread and a newspaper for the abuelita (not yours)

who lives upstairs

In the pile of coats

that comfortably muffle the syncopation of Fulanito

while the big people dance in the other room

In the aunts who aren’t blood, but thicker than

In the rush of eating Mr. Softee on a hot day

In your crew that waits for you outside of the school building

so you can run through the train car like it’s a mobile jungle gym,

moving through the sky with an ephemeral joy

When the officer has his elbow pressed to your spine

and your cheek pressed on the concrete

you are back in your body

you are back in your body

and you wonder for how long

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