Karen Gonzalez-Videla
What happens to monarchs in the wintertime?

I know the logistics: how they migrate in autumn,
pry their tongues away from northeastern marigold blooms,
nectar-filled and ready –

But why do you think I am ready?

I have waited too long and cold has cracked my wings.
I have traded the Spanish for muffled foreign noises.
I have become a Hispanic, shed the Argentina and bonaerense
for a clash of twenty nations you think are one.

But if you still deem me ready, help me.
Help me decrypt this map of scratches you left me, unstick
nostalgia from these northern snow-packed mountain valleys.
Help me journey back across a border I didn’t step on,
away from your arctic breezes and into an unknown
fairy tale of oyamel trees.