Maybe she feels trapped, a solitary gerbil living
in a wire cage, with a bed of straw she can nibble at
until it’s gone, and a spinning wheel that goes
nowhere, where her feet get caught in the fast
spinning spokes and break.
I have dreams where you’re sitting on the floor
in the business aisle of Barnes and Noble on Westheimer Road.
You have headphones in your ears, iPod in the front pocket of your jeans.
You’re holding a book on your lap and tapping your fingers
to the rhythm of Seal’s Killer.
In the mornings, you don’t want
to go to school. Your crying sounds
pierce my heart like a sword—I own
no armor and you are no radio either,
whose volume I can control the way I could
muffle my own sobs in kindergarten for weeks.
Nobody told me
that nausea could last nine months, two could weigh less
than one; that my pillow would become my punching
bag, and slow drivers could unleash my inner Leviathan.
It makes me stretch and change shapes.
My arms can be the swings
he can sit on and play for hours.
I can be the parachute he can use
to slow down his fall when flying,
the rubber boat he climbs up to,
when he feels he’s drowning.
I could not tell I was cheating.
Cheating did not run in my veins,
Just as plastic, glass, and tampons
don’t belong in the river’s fresh waters.
I believed I was helping him,
a young Blue Jay with a broken wing
and a slowing heart.
At birth, “Sin” was imprinted
on my skin. A capital “S”
had to be washed up by the baptismal waters
when I was only two months old.
“How much sin can there be in babies’ dreams?”
I asked my mom years later.
My mother tells me it was my father’s idea
to name me after her. She liked María del Mar—
Mary of the Sea—the Virgin patroness of Almería,
my parent’s birth city, where the sunlight bounces
off its crystalline waters.
My kindergarten classroom was a patchwork
quilt of countries woven together with the thread
of Spanish: Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia,
Guatemala, Venezuela, Honduras, and Spain,
my patch at the center, la Madre Patria.
In a party full of strangers, when asked
how you’re doing, don’t say you are
constipated, or call the boyfriend of the girl
you’ve just met boring. Remember,
ser and estar don’t exist in English,
but the boyfriend doesn’t know and
you will become embarrassed.
t is Friday, not any Friday, but Good Friday, 2020. Quarantine and social distancing have been the norm for a month. All days seem the same, though there’s something special about today: we’re adopting you from foster care.
How strange to awake to the singing robins, to stay
in bed without worry of being late, to enjoy breakfast
in the backyard, the pool waterfall cascading over rocks
the only sound breaking the morning silence.
How would you know that when Dan left in his handed-down Volvo
and drove back to Rotterdam, his blank-as-my-life-without-you CD
would be the only trace of his existence?
The ICU bed can hardly contain the size
of your body, your swollen feet sticking out
of the covers looking for a place to feel free
of restraints, but you are constrained
by tubes and machines—an arterial line,
an IV and infusion pump...
One hour to pack all that I own in five suitcases.
Their leather peels like sun-burned skin to the touch. I am
away from home and yet my clothes, my shoes,
my books, the items I carry for luck, the pictures
