we used to walk across the river. the river that used to flow into the lake now flows
into the mississippi. as we crossed over, we wished it was as clear as the river we swam
in deep in oregon, where no one looked like me. where the older teachers told me not
to talk to the children about my jewelry. a buddha pendant. the hand of fatima. just don’t
respond, they said, when your students ask: why is your skin darker than mine?
as if they were asking how eggs were fertilized. now, i live among many more people
and look like many of them. we make the same sounds. speak in two tongues
with complicated histories. we go to the beach. the school. its library. buy eggs.
which is to say, we pay the price. of eggs. admission. the price of what we want.

across the chicago river a resident would leave two big metal bowls of water for dogs.
bowls filled with leaves and bugs. they darkened like the river. like we do in summer.
chaco shunned them. he waited until we walked back. until we got home. we’d walk
across to the end of the road, to a little park next to the river. perfect place to toss a ball.
or a stick. let him run freely. rarely did anyone visit the park when we did. the city cut
the grass, but it was chunky and wild. deer, rabbits, possums, raccoons, maybe wild dogs
peered through the darkness with their special eyes. they kept their own rules about
seasons and impoverishment.

some days we kept walking east, to the square, where a few shops left clean water
and treats for dogs outside their doors. most people only took one. the last time i went
to the bank i took a red sucker tasting like chemical cherries. this would never happen
in india. no free sugar packets. jam and butter you can slip into your bag. now, east of
the mississippi, people at the protests say: i just thought all this would never happen here.
all this… is the history of this country. when i moved to chicago i was already fluent. fast.
supple. living on coffee. aware of ways to suppress cravings. while awaiting my student
loan, my tooth started to rot. i asked someone to lend me the money to get it fixed.
when the loan came in i’d buy books, eggs, and pay back. i waited. the tooth rotted.
the clawing hunger. cook county said they’d pull the tooth for free but wouldn’t fix it.

the day the loan arrived i bought art supplies and stood over an old white stove
in a coach house in pilsen. frying thick chunks of chihuahua cheese in a little cast iron
pan. over flames of gas. eating over the stove and humming the song i was writing,
my tooth smarting, thinking about the price of nopales. how brave—to remove spines
from cacti, chop them up and fry them with eggs. i never really liked the taste.
but i knew how to make them. how to persist. and now, with the price of eggs, we mix them
with tofu. it’s better, for the way we go about it. we change our flow, like a river. go around,
reverse course. but never back. go where? if this is where we have always been.