Guatemala
by Rebecca Balcárcel

Guatemala was a place inside my closet. It was a crumpled tissue-paper flower six inches across, turquoise and red, a stack of workbooks that read "Uno, un pajaro. Dos, dos gatos . . ." bought too late or worked too fast so that none of those dancing syllables would pair up in my head. Guatemala was wire hangers wearing ruts in the shoulders of vestidos, dresses inappropriate for all occasions in northwest Iowa, each skirt zig-zagged with pink guacamayas. Crazy green quetzales shouted at me from each short sleeve, teasing me, my navy blues and forests, catcalling, like the blacktopped boys hanging out against the Dairy Queen, boys with butterscotch skin shouting their rollercoaster words, looping their exotic syllables up a scale, flicking cartwheel sounds, leaving me excited and sick, happy (amazed, really) to be noticed and wanting to hide. Which I could almost do in my turtleneck and walking shorts, my knee socks and penny loafers, if only I didn't show my eyes which were obviously chocolate, obviously giddy and frightened, certainly curious and filling fast with wonder at what I might let myself be (and do) with a disreputable hispano boy. I looked straight ahead. Kept walking. And these Dairy Queen boys I stuffed to the back of my closet, with the crumpled flower, the taunting dresses, with the workbooks of the lilting language of my father's country, Guatemala.