Tag: memories
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The Box My Mother Kept
The Box My Mother KeptI find her in a boxlabeled “Misc.”full of not-miscellaneous things:wrinkled receipts—pollo, jabón, stamps from the 70’s and 80’s,movie ticket stubs to matinee rom-coms—each neatly placed under curled daisy petals.Birthday cards with crooked suns,one written by my six-year-old selfin tortured handwriting trying to be tender:“Te amo, Mamá”in Sharpie and crayon.A drawing of…
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Walking in the Rain
Walking in the RainI don’t know why rain breaks my heart.No one I loved ever died on a rainy day.In my life, it has become an elegy to sunshine.Maybe, it’s because rain feels like tears.I go outside when it reduces to a soft drizzle,just before the scent of petrichor has settled into the earth,my dog…
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Skin
SkinI felt the skin of my father—his thumb a soft shawlthat enveloped our intertwined hands.And when the embrace broke— how my tiny fingers traced the moss line of his skulluntil it became a familiar garden.How he would embrace mother, after-wards in her floral gown, so tenderly, thatI would sneak in later to smell the trace…
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A Hole in the Bucket
My mother was always a better singer than she was a cook. She may have burnt a lot of things but never missed a note, especially when Harry Belafonte came on the transistor kitchen radio-a voice so pure it made her cry with joy.“There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza,” he sang…
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This Old House Knows Me Well
This old house painted in faded pride knows me well. I did not learn to walk here,but I did learn to leap- and do it mightily.The old dishes have been broken or thrown away,replaced by new ones with new owners. The taps stiff with old age and rust, surely have been replaced.The comfortable chairs, the…
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Opening Her White Parasol
With the push of a button, the delicate porcelain releases lace ribs from the handle- little dove wings- shading her dreams, memories of father, creating this object to protect her from the shriveling sun.
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An Endless Telephone Call
I knew this pulse had traveled thru spacewith a shivery speedto reach this felt sole,these five yards of ancient twisted wires that gave it sound-striking its bell three times in mournful bursts.it was too early to hear the good news of friends.Yet, even not quite awake,I knew between the sounds of hello and goodbye my…
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She Supposes
She supposes a life beyond this wooden bench,this windswept summer day, this clear blue bay with fur seals mewling on the distant rocks.What will her husband, father, kids do if she dies? Nearby, a boy and girl are playing in the sandy grass.Just watching, a father and son, on another bench,we’re talking sports, memories of…
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Going Up the Stairs She Heard
She heard her children going slowly up the stairs of the old grand house draped in linen solitude. On the peacock treadsthey chanted discoveries,whispered mysteries she intimately knew.
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Walking Along the Seashore Without My Mother
The old negative of her with her hair pinned backI hold up to the horizon and see it fade into the waves.It was the one taken through the filtered window of her black car,her face half in night and half in day.Behind, I hear the echo of the sand cave.In front, the roar of swirl…
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Pact
I make a pact with my younger other self, my familiar in the crosswalk, the boy staring back not longing to be me,wondering where all that nice black hair went in our shadowed time and unwanted trusts, vows not to be our parents and just our mirrored selves. In spite of me/to spite me he…