On “Salt in a Freshwater Lake” by Amairani Perez Chamu
By Quraysh Ali Lansana
Hi, I’m Quraysh Ali Lansana, a poet, author and professor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, here for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’m delighted to explore a poem by one of my favorite Oklahoma poets, Amairani Perez Chamu
Amairani Perez Chamu is an award-winning poet and multidisciplinary artist from Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico. Her work spans poetry, narrative filmmaking, and abstract painting, positioning her as a dynamic voice in contemporary art and storytelling. Through her writing and visual practice, she explores the complexities of the undocumented experience, examining identity, displacement, and the enduring search for belonging amid chaos and uncertainty. Her work serves as both a reclamation and reimagination of narratives surrounding undocumented lives. She is the author of Coyolxāuhqui: Poems, her debut poetry collection. Her writing has appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, POPSUGAR, Philbrook Museum of Art, the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, and the Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma.
The stirring, elegant poem of hers that I’ve selected to share is Salt in a Freshwater Lake, which is a stunning work of multiple convergences. Here’s the poem:
Salt in a Freshwater Lake
Twenty years is a long river to swim back from,
but here she is, my grandmother,
stepping off the plane with the ocean still rocking gently in her hips,
Acapulco still salting the corners of her eyes.
We take her to the lake because it's the closest water we have.
Because some kinds of love only speak the language of waves.
Because we didn't know how else to say welcome home
in a place that was never her home,
but is, now, the only one we have to offer her.
She wades in slowly,
the way she must have waded into the Pacific as a girl,
and for a moment the lake forgets it isn't the sea,
and she forgets, or maybe just forgives, the twenty years the water carried off
birthdays, holidays, the small quiet deaths of people
she loved from a distance thinner than any ocean should be allowed to be.
Later we eat on a blanket the grass has warmed for us:
mango cut the way only her hands still remember,
chicken seasoned from memory alone,
tortillas someone's mother taught someone's mother to pat into moons.
We laugh the way only families who have lost time know how to laugh
loudly, greedily, like we are trying to eat the years back one bite at a time.
Used with permission
I’ve already used the word stunning to describe this poem, but it’s worth repeating. This is a stunning, moving, and delicate poem. The reader is immersed in the history, trauma and elusive beauty of the migrant experience of Mexican people in the United States through the tender and disconcerting intimacy of a matriarch far from home.
Twenty years is a long river to swim back from,
but here she is, my grandmother,
stepping off the plane with the ocean still rocking gently in her hips,
Acapulco still salting the corners of her eyes.
This opening stanza does so much work. It establishes tone, subject and longing, via the narrative of a grandmother touching ground in this country. That first line, “Twenty years is a long river to swim back from” roots us in both the distance of time, as well as the hurdles of heart, geography and politics. It is so graceful, so quiet in its desperation and wistfulness. That the stanza closes with “Acapulco still salting the corners of her eyes.” creates a round stanza, connecting the metaphor from the first line in a concrete manner. It is a very satisfying stanza, in the sense that the reader senses where we are, but not completely. We lack full understanding, but are not lost, unlike the speaker’s grandmother. That juxtaposition of the grandmother’s plight and the speaker’s omniscient voice is touching and powerful.
The second stanza is so delicate, a beautiful anguish and heart-hurting conundrum for the stateside family members:
We take her to the lake because it's the closest water we have.
Because some kinds of love only speak the language of waves.
Because we didn't know how else to say welcome home
in a place that was never her home,
but is, now, the only one we have to offer her.
An ocean rests between the grandmother and the speaker’s family. An ocean of time and space, as well as a literal ocean. A lake is not an ocean, but “...it’s the closest water we have…”. This new home is not your home, grandmother, but we are trying desperately to make you feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. The speaker’s vulnerability in “Because we didn't know how else to say welcome home…” is simple, eloquent and despondent. “but is, now, the only one we have to offer her.” This is a plea, an ill-fitting understanding for all involved.
Though there are smaller manifestations of convergence in the first two stanzas, it is in the third stanza that we feel its zenith:
She wades in slowly,
the way she must have waded into the Pacific as a girl,
and for a moment the lake forgets it isn't the sea,
and she forgets, or maybe just forgives, the twenty years the water carried off
birthdays, holidays, the small quiet deaths of people
she loved from a distance thinner than any ocean should be allowed to be.
The poem’s matriarch immerses herself in this salt water, in this new country, slowly, cautiously, yet innocently. “...the way she must have waded into the Pacific as a girl,”. Then the dazzling turn of phrase and personification of “and for a moment the lake forgets it isn't the sea,”. Is the grandmother’s presence in the salt water more bewildering to the lake or the matriarch? This is so exquisite, so very delicate and exacting at the same time. A stunning utterance.
Then our matriarch briefly relaxes, but only briefly. Are the lake waves enough to hold her? To hold back memories of the loved ones she’s lost due to migration, detention, death? This stanza is breathtaking.
The poem’s final stanza plants us, literally and figuratively, on soil:
Later we eat on a blanket the grass has warmed for us:
mango cut the way only her hands still remember,
chicken seasoned from memory alone,
tortillas someone's mother taught someone's mother to pat into moons.
We laugh the way only families who have lost time know how to laugh
loudly, greedily, like we are trying to eat the years back one bite at a time.
The stanza opens with another lovely turn of phrase and use of personification: “Later we eat on a blanket the grass has warmed for us:”. Then the poem steeps us in culture, the culture of grandmother’s home and the culture of memory through food–mangos, seasoned chicken, “...tortillas someone's mother taught someone's mother to pat into moons.” Traditions from the past finding space, making space, in this new land. The poem closes with a sentence that references the many forms of hunger that only family, only togetherness, can satiate:
We laugh the way only families who have lost time know how to laugh
loudly, greedily, like we are trying to eat the years back one bite at a time.
Thank you for being with us for Poets on the Plains. I’m Quraysh Ali Lansana, poet, author and professor coming to you from the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of over twenty books in poetry, nonfiction and children’s literature. Lansana is Applied Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing and Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he is also Director of the African American Studies program and the Media Lab. Lansana is an alumnus of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and was formerly a Lecturer in Africana Studies at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa where he also served as Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation.
He is a founding member of Tri-City Collective and serves on the Board of Directors of Oklahoma Humanities and the Tulsa Press Club. Lansana is a Curatorial Scholar for The Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. He is a Cave Canem alumnus and a member of the first cohort of the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing Fellowship. https://www.tricitycollective.com/quraysh-ali-lansana
FEATURED POET
Amairani Perez Chamu is an award-winning poet and multidisciplinary artist from Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico. Her work spans poetry, narrative filmmaking, and abstract painting, positioning her as a dynamic voice in contemporary art and storytelling. Through her writing and visual practice, she explores the complexities of the undocumented experience, examining identity, displacement, and the enduring search for belonging amid chaos and uncertainty. Her work serves as both a reclamation and reimagination of narratives surrounding undocumented lives. She is the author of Coyolxāuhqui: Poems, her debut poetry collection. Her writing has appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, POPSUGAR, Philbrook Museum of Art, the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, and the Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma.
