Poetry

She left me keys to a house
where no one can live.
They’re tearing it down Tuesday
and putting a vape shop in,
but today they razed the lilacs,
shore their heads like enlistees,
a violet bloodbath of petals
dying on the front lines.
Had they known how she sang
to them each morning,
a cathead biscuit tucked into
each pocket for the squirrels,
perhaps they’d understand why
I gulp gasped in the grass
of her lawn— their lawn—
as the flower clusters collapsed
and branches trapped me breathless
in a driveway I no longer knew.

I bought this car to prove I could
and now, as I wait to turn left
a man exits the Quik-Stop,

black sweats sagging, pantlegs
shirred halfway up his narrow calves.
He’s probably my age, maybe even

a one-time middle-school messiah.
He slouches down the sidewalk,
knees hinging like a marionette

as if in time to Grace Slick,
who’s up so loud the ragtop throbs.
He gestures toward traffic with a tall-boy

then folds to the curb. How I envy him.
My tongue swells as the cold slides
down his throat, jaw slackening,

the world easing up a little.
My sister drank the same brand
when her check ran thin.

The last time I saw her
she drove up to the house, window down.
Come on, she said. It hadn’t been long

since I couldn’t say no, veins drawn tight
brain to toes—so I went inside.
I wish she was here. She’d settle down

on the curb beside him, light a cigarette,
put her hand out for his beer.
And he would give it to her,

the joke passing between their eyes—
me still in my lane
mouthing the words to the song,

you better find somebody to love.

Newspaper crumpling, my sister
sops up vinegar from a bowl,
the window squeaking as she scrubs
at its watery promise.

She’s taller than me, even on her knees,
hair back, jaw set as her hand
circles then dips, circles then dips,
stops. Even I can see she’s distracted

from the messy house by sunlight
sliding through glass in long angular plates
as if life is about to bloom.
The ice in our mother’s glass shifts

and my sister’s braid sways,
her slender arm returns
to circling. I have no idea
who I will be without her.

I’m told the wind is the keeper of memories
But I don’t even think it knows
When I started bleeding

A young man stands on the shore
Where clockwork waves
Only move with the death of butterflies

Sand swims over his feet
He grabs a handful of the
Loose ground and lets it

Slip into the water
He’s a February child, like me
I can tell from his voice

It falls like heart-shaped snow
I pick up the sand
It brings me back to Cub Scouts

“Don’t worry. We’ll catch you”
I lean back like a baby eagle learning to fly
Gravity does its only routine
Two boys back away from me
My body meets the tile floor

Sand slides out of my grasp
My fingers are frost, born of ice
The shore shows itself again

I don’t think it worked

I didn’t know I spent most of my youth telling half
Truths. I was born under your Floridian sun

Had my first crush witnessed by North Carolina’s Mountains
Held my first library card under the guidance of Tennessee snow

And yet, I’ve always told you I was Mexican
But wasn’t that the answer you wanted?

No. It was the answer you gave me.
But your answer never changed when you heard

You’re not a true Mexican until you can hold your spice
And speak Spanish. You knew I cried, biting jalapenos

And you knew I didn’t speak Spanish, but never smiled
When others said I had an American accent.

Still, you told me I couldn’t be white without an ‘h’ in my name
And I know my color can’t let you label me as passing, like my father

But there was a time when he wasn’t passing. A time when you let
A mother’s accent anoint him as half white and good enough to be a janitor.

And you taught his father the song We Don’t Speak Spanish Here
So how can I learn the lyrics of Latin language when you limit the chorus?

And I still love the textured taste of cut steak and mashed potatoes
You can still hear my hum of ordering hamburgers with fries

I’ve seen you loosen your lips about sun-kissed skin
I’ve heard you hold your tongue over untaught syllables

But you keep quiet when your claimed child peeks
Eyes wandering side to side to the clicking of clocks

Are you legal?

“Why isn’t he crying?”
I look up to the Angel her sleeves rolled back
Covered in my fluids
Thousands of drops coat her fingers
My blood the brightest, cakes her pale hands,
The hands holding my son

He’s not the glass doll in the nativity set
He’s limp
Silent
Silent night, holy night
She looks up with blue eyed horror
This is not the perfect scene

He was supposed to be loud, hungry and gorgeous
I look as she takes a single white nail and cuts the cord
One swipe we are no longer one
The boy I screamed to hold
He didn’t scream back
Silent night, holy night

She rushes away holding him
Like if she doesn’t cradle his neck and back He might fall in two
That’s when it started, my sobs
The need to stand up
I was bleeding, split in two
I tried to stand and cried like a dog hit by it’s owners truck

Shock and need to get away, away, away
Joseph wrapped me in his arms
To comfort me?
No, to keep me still
Pin the weeping cow as her calf
is ripped toward the meat drawer

Next to me in the dirty broken barn
The donkey’s ears twitch
Eyes wide as it lets out a quiet huff
I knew she was a Jill
In her eyes was a mother
who’s waited like me before
Silent night, holy night

The Angel shook
I could hear her teeth chatter
God didn’t prepare her for a dead savior
Her wings were tall
making a white feathery wall
Blocking me from my boy

I hate her
She delivered my son
She’s saving my son
She’s here to protect us and I hate her
If he doesn’t live
What am I?
A game

Nine months of pain
Morning sickness
Feet swollen into hooves
Tears fat and stupid
I was a dancing fool
The bells ringing above my head

I thought it confirmation he was with me
All it had been was a jester’s hat
Hot tears rolled down my cheeks
I pushed myself away from Joseph
who loved me through everything
My pretty saintly bullshit became his
I was an idiot

I hate god
Give me my son
I’m not asking I’m telling
Don’t let him be a painful transaction
Don’t let him die in a crash he didn’t cause
Don’t make me the foolish dancing monkey

I was fourteen dammit when you asked me
Of course I’d say yes
How dare you
How fucking dare you take my boy
My beautiful sweet, gorgeous, giving, dead, dead, dead-

A single long cry that made my aching core sew itself together
My tears felt like foreign objects on my skin
I didn’t know why they’d be there when’s he’s here
The Angel holds him like a precious thing
A holy thing
A gorgeous gorgeous thing

All mine to love and hold
She sets him in my arms
one hand on his neck the other on his back
I grin like a fool
He’s covered in the filth from my body
I lay a hand on his naked chest his heart beating

It’s gonna run dry one day
To bleed away all wrongs and make all rights
as gorgeous as him
But right now he’s making little squeaks
Tiny confused cries
And when he latches onto my chest I feel him feed

His crying stops
It’s a silent night, a holy night
That’s when I understand why the whole world sings