Calle San Miguel

By: Lexi Baldacci

“Привет! Привет!” the man called out,

sitting on the small step at his doorway

t-shirt crumpled atop his full round belly,

grasping at her ambiguous blondeness

her unmistakable yumanidad.

She continued, refusing eye contact

because she knew now that the calls of

“frances? aleman?” and the heavily

accented “whereareyoufrom?”

were no different than “taxilady?”

an effort to sell her something

their goods or their knowledge or

themselves.

Mostly this was annoying

and sometimes almost threatening

like when they got right in her ear

and told her she was linda,

not making her feel that way at all,

but sometimes it was funny,

like when she told them, “yo soy de aquí”

and they answered back, “el único aquí

de tú eres

es de la tierra” and she felt

every day

that that was true.