Maria slipped buttons
into the elastic of her sweats,
beaded, tortoise-shelled
from the Winn’s fabric department.
She treasurespread across the red dinette
pairings last week’s spoils, tinned
under the bed we shared every weeknight.
Her hands unfurl a tendril stretch.
iiiiiiiiii Dame la mano, niño.
Masa gripped sinew,
like summer canal mud
until her hand is mine,
and my breath is café and Durango.
Maria made mulberry jam.
Its tartness tickled the space
behind my right eye, where I kept
the taste of prickly pear,
not quite believing
spines hid pulped sweetness at five.
She’d share her coffee, burnt
caramel as my parents bussed
across the city to denim factories.
iiiiiiiiiiAs if I were her own child.
Did you know that wolf spiders
carry their young on their backs?
Mass of teeming legs and babyfur,
and a million pinned eyes baying silently
at Saturn moons in every direction.
With a whisper, a living scatter.
Threads tethered with back to her
a promise of return.
My mind is cataract
blind to those spinneret webs.
iiiiiiiiiiPelón, ya llegaste
My father’s face
iiiiiiiiiiat 23 dancing to Blondie,
iiiiiiiiiiat 28 losing his gold horned pendant,
iiiiiiiiiihanging veil across his neck,
iiiiiiiiiiat 46 crying to “Mi Viejo,”
iiiiiiiiiiat 52 desertbright with children in his arms.
Found
iiiiiiiiiilike the buried treasures of Pancho Villa.
Found
iiiiiiiiiilike buttons in cookie tins.
iiiiiiiiiiTe pusiste flaco.
My mother pulses in supercuts—
iiiiiiiiiiironing her hair to the Ronettes,
iiiiiiiiiiher first black eye,
iiiiiiiiiithe darkness of her left lung,
iiiiiiiiiiher missing daughter,
iiiiiiiiiithe stained peach of hospital rooms.
I weep in the backseat
of her white Palomino,
at the dining table she bought
on credit, as she thrumbs berries
threaded dark from the Cosmos,
and feeds them to me
until I have my fill.