Arrivals

When I throw up the candied coconut

mixed in salt water, I feel empty. Jujú

holds my hand, and I tell her next year

we’ll return to the ocean. Truth feels

different in the skin of a child. I think

that if I say it enough, the waves will

pull me back to the thunderous

music of the tide. Ocean waves

feel like body armor, like I can charge

into battle with them. Years later, this last

birthday off the coast would become memories

of tortillerías, sugared tamarindo on

the side of the highway near the beach,

and the musty smell of wet earth before

the rain comes. I remember every detail of the day.

How I stubbed my toe in the morning

and was bitten by a crab in the afternoon. People

on the beach that day have become living,

breathing photographs in my mind. Windblown

hair flying in people’s eyes, my name etched

on the dunes, cousins became mermaids

on the sand, my dad—full beard just barely

graying—smiles with a Dos Equis in his hand

and gestures wildly with the other, mid-joke.