I blame the first chrysanthemum she gave me in a whisper: I should have given you this flower a long time ago. And I blame the stars all around, smelling of freshly-cut grass, the first greens sprouting on the branches. Yes, Spring is to be blamed, breaking through the heavy blanket of cold, screaming with…
Category: Letters Home
the flood of my affection
this silence like ova bursting in my mouth, my eyes windows shivering behind the storm just before the break I lean my face into the glass pane, something trembles in your gaze, an imperceptible gap: I go through it, my mouth full of shrapnel my chest…
Far too close by
With no place to go. That’s how you feel when a taxi driver tells you (his salty eyes in the rearview mirror/ through which he looks at/ you and keeps/ you trapped for a second in/ the backseat, and through this watery/ mirror where he just trapped/ you with his eyes, so bright/ they shine)…
Lady sings the blues, or
the birds. now we do not need landing runways we have no body we are just our breath coming out of the blue.
Autumn
Remember yesterday. When everything changed for about two minutes, at dusk, and the red sky just fell on the red foliage. Suddenly all the buildings lit up. And then the street noise was only wind and bicycles. Autumn happens forever in gerund: that elusive / moment / when something is / ending, // almost over,…
Chest of Gold
Romulo is 10 years old. Last year, he underwent complicated surgery. His mother prayed to saints Cosmas and Damian. Today, he is running around, playing football, asking to eat candy before lunch. With her prayers answered, his mother handed out candy to children in the neighbourhood. Romulo was left with a scar cutting through his…
Marcela had never cried
Until the day Carla came to visit her in foster care. It was a small baby, autistic, not moving, nor reacting to the light. “People told me it was no use picking her up, that she was locked in her world.” Carla took Marcela anyway. And sang to her. “When I put her back in…
To say the innocent word
She suddenly turns and says, “Never again. Isn’t it strange to know that never, never again?”, and smiles at me. Why does it hurt our hearts to see an abandoned pair of shoes? Or a half-drunk glass, a word that someone forgot or that was never even said, a way to touch the forehead that…
This luxury word
My mother thought study was the grandest thing in the world *. It is not. When I was little, my mother and I stole flowers from the flower beds on the way to my grandparents’ house. We arrived with our hands full of wilted flowers. One day, Grandma planted one of them. I used to think…
To things unsaid
I slowly release the embrace, fold my hands, lower my eyes and shut myself up, turning my back, smiling strong, stepping hard, and holding a flowerpot – this is not for the weak. Well, yes, humans are the ones who hurt, those who tread heavily and do not ask, those who do not respond, who…
Sea and sun, mixed
When we were kids and traveled to the beach, my godfather always came with us. Sometimes, he had to return home a few days earlier. On the farewell at the bus station, we would cry as if the parting would be forever. Many years later, when my godfather died, I did not cry. My brother…
Excuse me,
I should be toying with poems and books and whatnot, but today I’d rather write about the boy with sore hands. Or the girl on the platform holding a gesture in her palms, something lost halfway between hello and farewell. Her lover on the other side, he never saw it, the thing inside her hands,…
