by Alejandra Pena
when i think of my father, i think of hands calloused & eyes heavy & boots dirty. i think
of him as Moses—parting the sea by walking days without sleep, without water, without shoes to
the promised land; a land so foreign that his tongue will never roll smoothly enough to be
considered native. instead—it rolls too harshly; every flick of his tongue a rebellion, a
lighthouse, a map home.
Alejandra Pena is a lesbian, Mexican-American poet. Her work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Sleet Magazine, and Prism International. She loves her pug Kiwi and the moon.