Tiene Algo                                                        

My mom would say, eyebrows raised,
finger pointing toward her head.
He has something.

This didn’t mean he had smarts,
talent, wealth, beauty. It meant
the something—something
we couldn’t quite name—
was something we didn’t want.

Tiene algo, not to be confused
with hidalgo—a nobleman—
which literally means
hijo de algo, son of something,
which makes the rest of us
sons of no one,
children of nothing.

Hay algo in all of this,
algo I can’t quite pinpoint
because now when my son and I
who inherited the phrase
say about a friend, an acquaintance,
even someone on the street,
tiene algo, we smile

because we know
while that algo could
be dangerous or disabling,
it usually isn’t.
It’s really that they have, well, algo,
something we don’t,
something we’ve never known.

We’re each here to be who we are
do what we do
como él solo
como ella sola—
like he/she/they alone can
because how can we compare ourselves
to anyone but who we are?

It all comes down to this algo.
It seeps from some of us
more than others
which makes some people
whisper—snicker even—
tiene algo.

But others will say
tiene ALGO
palms facing out
fingers spread cabaret-style
like a ta-da.

We are all children of something.
Thank god there’s a word for it.