Franco Bastida
Apricots
If I had an apricot
for every time my father told me,
“Look both ways before crossing the street”
there would be plenty at my feet
but they would be dry.
Because apricots are sweet
and meant to be shared
and each seed carries
a pinch of nostalgia.
Some are ripe
like the slurp of the first sorbet
in a hot summer day
or the aftertaste of a salty, watery
kiss after an ocean plunge.
Some are not
like the lemon pie gone sour
before everybody’s eyes
or the bite of dust
when a car ran me over by the park.
It had been but a scratch
but man, was he angry,
“En la cabeza, ¡no!”
You see,
the head is so fragile
it peels off if you get it real bad
it can change your life
just like that.
Franco Bastida (Torreón, 1993) is a Mexican journalist, musician and global policy expert based in Berlin. He is a Latin American Studies graduate from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Plattsburgh and has written work in the fields of security, education, politics and technology, among others. In 2023, he published his first poetry book, NOISE: Poems of water and sand, after experimenting with zines in Pitzilein Books’ workshop in Mexico City.
