IThere are stories about boys like me who become water                                                in a bathtub. Sound underwater doesn’t travel.II                                        Two truths & a lie:(1) The Aztec deity of water, Calchiuhtlicue, released fifty-two years of rain,                                drowned the fourth sun, created Earth, turned people into fish;                                                            (2) Water has memory;                                      (3) Learning to swim will not help you save a life.III        Apá drives my brother & I to Corpus Christi,        Lo más importante no es saber nadar            si no como flotar para que no te ahoges.At the beach, my brother is tall enough to stand                                in the water. Afraid of the current, I grab on to Apá’s waist, but                       Apá throws me in. I land near the bottom of the ocean, my body starfish like.         He pulls me up from the sand,                    Qué te pasa, debes dejar ir el aire en tu cuerpo.IV                                    Once upon a time in México, Apá & his brother stuffed their livesinto a knockoff JanSport backpack: birth certificates,                                    identifications, pictures, a rosario, one pair of clean clothes,& a water bottle. Their last night in México, they bended their hands like waves,                                    asked God for a safe crossing into America.They slept on the benches of the church. In the morning, they set off                                    on a four-day journey up north toward Texas. They forgot to        calculate how fast water evaporates, the strength of the Rio Grande                                    running to the Gulf, how water swims on your skin,consumes your body. The river folded & folded & folded his brother’s body under itsthickness.                                        Apá learned not all rivers are meant to be crossed.V                        At the Gulf of México, Apá dips his feet in & out of the water, Iwonder if he feels close to México, to his brother. If part of Chalchiuhtlicue’svengeance is toturn men into fish, is my Tío out there?VIAt the beach, a wave takes my brother in,                                    Apá sinks his feet into the sand, calls out to my brother.A white man yanks my brother out.                                Apá tells my brother, Crees que sabes el camino de la agua, eh?The white man tells Apá, Why didn’t you do something?                 Apá freezes, ¿Qué dijo?                    —I tell him what the white man said, Apá buries his feet deeper into thesand, looks down. I thought all wetbacks knew how to swim,                                the white man laughs, turns to his friends, points at Apá, Look—                                                    a wetback          who doesn’t know              how to swim.VII                                        I have dreams of diving into a pool,                                    when I pick up my head I’m on the surface of the Gulf of México,                                        I pull against currents, I hear the man calling Apá wetback,              the closer I get to them the farther the waves push me. I go under.                                                    Water goes inside of me                                    until I know the weight of it. I reach the bottom                                        of the ocean where I call for my Tío                                                                                    until I become sea foam.