like a circle of hawks
you nip at the foreigner in me.
“i’m sorry,” You said, but it was
the way i held guayaba, turning the
bruised fruit with uncertain fingers.
the old vendor gives me a
strained gap-toothed grin, a
burnt cigar tucked between his lonely
front teeth. under this golden-red sun,
your face does not burn and
on the shores of varadero,
i saw You in a little boy
begging tourists for change, nail beds
the browning crust of a cliffside.
You are apologetic, quiet but
obtrusive — a misplaced pebble,
a stray siamese, an illegally parked
russian lada purring quietly. 50
pesos couldn’t chase You away.
Robina Nguyen is a student at North Toronto Collegiate Institute. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Outland Magazine and a researcher at the Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum. Her work is featured or forthcoming in the West End Phoenix, Blue Marble Review, Shameless Magazine, Disobedient Magazine, The Monarch Ranger, Overachiever Magazine, Queerlings Magazine, Ricepaper Magazine and more.