A Child of Immigrants

Ángel García

The phone  rings.  I  pick up.
The  voice,   unrecognizable.
Distant   words.   Between,  I
hear  my  mother’s  name.   I
cover  the   mouthpiece  and
call  out  for  her  to  pick up.
From  somewhere   else,  she
answers      the      line.     Yells
from   another    room,   okay,
hang  up.  Only,  I don’t.   In  a
language  I  know  will  never
be     mine     she    speaks    to
someone   in    a    country    I
will    never    know.   Still,     I
listen.     I     coil     the   chord
around  my  finger,   fist,  and
wrist.   Long  after   she   says
goodbye  and  hangs up,   I’m
still     marked     by     what   I
don’t understand.

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Ángel García, the proud son of Mexican immigrants, is the author of Indifferent Cities (Tupelo Press, forthcoming), winner of a Helena Whitehill Book award and Teeth Never Sleep (University of Arkansas Press), recipient of a CantoMundo Poetry Prize, an American Book Award, and finalist for a PEN America Open Book Award and a Kate Tufts Award. His work has been published in the American Poetry Review, McSweeney’s, Crab Orchard Review, Huizache, The Acentos Review, and most recently in Michigan Quarterly Review and The Adroit Journal. The recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, Vermont Studio Center, and MacDowell, Ángel currently teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Adroit Journal

52

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Peter LaBerge

Executive Editor
Heidi Seaborn

Managing Editor
Chris Crowder

Poetry Editors
Sara Afshar
Emily Cinquemani
Zoe Dorado
Abbie Kiefer
Eugenia Leigh

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