Author: admin

On a path cut through the canyon below Gold Hill,
I watched the hillside’s clay wash away
all traces of the past, like me
trying to shed from memory your collapse

There was no fish stethoscope nor directions
to keep them alive. The tank had no lights,
no filters, no hazardous waste warnings.

I, suddenly present,
know my sight as layer one,
behind which compartmentalized
all the layers of my history
decompose.

my silence?
when it roars like a river and whistles in the wind,
when it comes as lightening to crackle on the sand,
will you know it then? will you know it then? my silence.

In dreams we dance on the riverbed
Abuela kicks up her heels
split red pomegranates
She feeds me fire I swallow flames

I am a walking flower, bright
turquoise white and yellow, edged
in black geometric-patterned silk, a button
on strands of colored thread hooked
around my throat.

After Mama died I unraveled
the hem of one of her blouses
sewing a dress
for my granddaughter

we mustn’t startle the earth with such a
historic touch that no one would understand
the number of lives
we’ve lived

A woman like water
is the shape of the sea.

But you remember the massed candles
burning needlessly on a bright afternoon,
their light unnecessary in the dazzling glow

Cora, the cupcake girl—
partnered up with me
at a student desk built for two