I KILLED THE SONGS INSIDE ME AS A PRECAUTION
& the hands
around my throat
are my own
& I apologize
to no one because
overlook means
both to supervise
& to neglect
& I am guilty
of both
the days
wear on & still
I wear down
skinned & I
realize now
the hands around
my throat
are my own
because it hurts
to show
people what
love sounds like
& it's not
always pretty
I know because
the hands
around my
throat are
my own &
there's silence
like blackstrap
molasses
extracted by
cutting or
crushing or
mashing then
boiling & boiling
& I realize now
the hands around
your throat
are mine &
I still don't
know if muzzles
are to keep
the animal
from barking
or biting
+++
THERE WAS NOTHING TO DO BUT HURT EACH OTHER IN A PLACE LIKE THAT
We drive the back roads deeper
into the desert. We've driven
this road before, alone together.
Mother tells me about the house
built by her father on the outskirts
of San Luis Río Colorado,
how garbage trucks didn't make it
that far from town so the family burned
trash in a pit out back every night.
The useless pile's glow visible for miles.
She tells me about her siblings—
five sisters, two brothers—
how they threw her in that pit
one morning. They called her pollita
and cenicienta, her fair skin ashen
and filthy. They hated me, she says,
we hated each other. She blames
her hair—the light strands
in old photographs surrounded
by manes black like mine. I brushed it
obsessively, mother tells me. Hundreds
of times a night, she says. The sun
peaks over the Sand Tank Mountains.
Her blonde hair turns white nearly.
It's been years since I've touched it.
The smell of dirt and sun seeps in
through vents, mixes with the cool
air keeping us awake. I count saguaros,
imagine sitting under their long shadows.
But they pass too quickly or I give up
too easily. We drive and mother tells me
about the time she ran from one end
of the hallway to the other, leapfrogging
over her sister who sat on the floor
cutting paper dresses for her paper dolls.
Tia Imelda stabbed her in the knee
with a pair of dull scissors. And mother
hesitates to tell me what her sister
screamed before thrusting
the rusted blades into her small body:
You do that one more time and I'll kill you.
+++
MOVE CLOSER
Blind men see all
in nightmares. Still
doubt cannot see
everything. The valley pulls
the desert away from the city
above. How did your mother cry
when the brown earth caught
your brother's body? When
creatures dispersed throughout
the land? Weeds grow around
the pit where a young woman releases
her husband into the shambles.
Morning stitched with darkness,
a scant allegiance to nobody. And you,
you won't speak because of the quiet.
You watch monsoon rains drench the girl.
Her feet buried, small dunes of wet sand. You know
you hear the desert toads.
"Do Not Enter" by Roger Reeves
|