El Chillón Means Crybaby

All I was was a chillón.
Neighbors lined up against our fence
while the nurse checked for fever.
Mamá Pati called me her ear’s fruit fly.
Backyard mangos begged god,
¡Callá este chillón diosmío!
This is what Abuelita tells me.

She says everyone brushed ash-toothpaste
with horsehair toothbrushes, that
Mamá Pati had a baker’s sleep schedule,
that before 4 am, bakers once baked bagels
for tourists. My town hates bagels. I’m nine
and I’ve never seen a bagel.

I don’t remember how tourists tipped.
Abuelita still does. Before I was born
she says the dawn’s locomotion of troops
was the town’s alarm. She says
the aftertaste of ashes is moth wings—
arid powder where names are buried.

Those gringos wore uniforms and threw coins
into the tide, she says, and boys reached for copper
from El Norte, where she knows
dusk is like honey. She says mangos begged god,
¡Callá estos gringos diosmío!

I know no one slept before my birth.
For years after,
still, no one slept.