Two days in and the coaches give her
A nickname
Two syllables instead of my three—
Her given name is too full
Of beauty, of vowel, of nuance.
Of Spanish.
New name time:
serve new identities, spike the old ones.
Two syllables:
Something short, ugly. American.
They are only joking, they say.
They don’t mean anything by it.
A nickname is easy to remember,
Like knowing one’s place.
I spent nine months on that name
As she got ready to cross over
Like her grandfather did—
his Mayan name chopped in half
to make it easier on everyone’s identity
but the one erased.
