The red leather chair absorbs another sip

of Mexican mocha, sharing generously with my shirt

and the overwhelming angsty stereotype of a tattooed

poet lounging in a coffee shop. I watch a spider web

floating in the breeze, hear a baby exclaiming in the next

room over, and I am at peace. Today, I come to the realization

that identity is not in the voice. To speak, to express, to

communicate becomes a formation of the self but identity

is the way the girl in the next chair crosses her legs in deep thought,

murmuring to herself as she sips a peach smoothie on the table.

Identity is the way spider webs creep up the side of the window,

catching my attention in the breeze as they stretch under morning

sun. Identity is the taste of cinnamon on the bottom of my coffee,

sticking to my tongue like little snatches of offbeat live music on Monday

nights, drifting through open windows and smoggy Fresno

nights. Identity is the way the valley sun starts to take paint

off cars and peel it to match the little curls of overripe husks

on the side of the citrus groves that line the 168. Identity

is the way a fresh tattoo heals on my calf, drying out slowly

flaking away until the color emerges from dead skin like Fresno

emerges from the layer of dust that blows in quiet waves

down Belmont Avenue. Identity is the way the a coffee shop

conversation goes to war about the Padres and the Giants

but ends in peace in agreement over Fresno State football.

Identity is the way that strangers in this coffee shop make

eye contact for a second before acknowledging

the deep not knowing and walking on, sharing first

a single moment of together in the midst of soft music

and red wallpaper. Identity is second language

students writing binder paper assignments

that sit in the stack on my couch to be graded,

with neat handwriting and a dialect of blended

grammar and effort. Identity is no longer

individualistic, it is not a measurement of the space

that I inhabit instead it is how well I am able to become

a part of this city and to listen to the way it breathes, all

together in the deep quiet way that the wind strokes the

foothill grass and echoes in the way we walk, stride

from the sidewalks of downtown to the open courtyards of

the Northern shopping centers. It inhales in the way

our words leave footprints in the deep soil, exhales

the way our ideas leave trails on skin, that is identity.