Poetry
If I had a time machine, I would tell / you the suffering isn’t worth the fame
The commanders wish me to say / the language beaten from me. / Each time I speak another sun / drops from the abnormal sky.
I pull up a chair, lower the bedrails. / He bats at my hand. When he finds it, he quiets, / his hand a vice on mine.
I remove the day, strip myself / of the expectations and the pain, / the way my soul strives and my flesh endures
They took two buses to get there. / Rosalia wouldn’t speak, just cradled the little suit / until Ruben gently took it away from her.
She wondered what would happen / to her actual face. Would it fade away? Or would it / stay put, like a person you can never get rid of
My mother’s old kimono cradles me / so that I can become a fish, wet with / water I can drape about my shoulders.