Golondrinas

Papá, you wrote this poem:

the beating of the hearts

broken the calm of the ocean that

feeds them and the howling o’ the

night banishes the cowardly eyes

in the melancholy they sink when

life rejects them at tender

sunset

we are thorned souls

far from reality

and hailed the cypresses

and the Golondrinas

Papá, you and I are golondrinas, swallows. I came to you, to perch on your balcony and lie in

your nest. I flew away at tender sunset. You were a thorned soul, a sacred heart, and you knew I would

return.

You held my mom’s hand. Rain came down and filled the streets. A downed powerline slipped

into a puddle, and when you and mom splashed through it, you were shocked from hand to hand.

You went back to your sisters and declared, “I am in love!”

They rolled their eyes, “Pshhh, ¡Arturo el romántico!”

I was born two years later.

In an old video, I sat on your lap and tried to eat dirt. Mom held the camera. “Arturo, watch out!”

she said.

“Ah, don’t worry, Megan. My mom let us play in dirt. It’s good for you.”

Meanwhile, I stuck my face in the mud.

I wonder if you already had symptoms when that video was taken. I wonder when mom knew.

Maybe you talked about the delusions and hallucinations—once the video camera was switched off and I

was put down to nap.

I know you tried to go to the U.S. to get treatment, but they caught you crossing the border as a

kid and wouldn’t let you in.

Right before my first birthday, mom made the decision to leave and take me with her. I think you

understood. You “weren’t very stable,” she said. Not stable enough to raise a child. I try to understand. I

wonder when you knew we were leaving. I know you always thought we might come back—your

golondrinas. You were not a coward. You never gave up. And new birds flew to your sill. Not many,

though. It was a lonely life, but your mother was there, and you had a few friends at Rock and Ron’s pub

and bar.

You sent me paintbrushes in the mail. You were an artist. You wrote to me, “Every day when i

wake up i say a little prayer on your sake and when i paint every sroke i intention it with love for you.”

When I was little, mom fielded the calls and emails. She tried to protect me, I think. In high school, she

let me talk to you on my own.

At fourteen, I was too young to understand your love. My attention span wasn’t long enough for

your love. I only responded to about half of your emails. This made you sad. I hope the happiness you felt

when you received an email outweighed the sadness from my silence. “Have I angered you, indi??” you

wrote. You hadn’t. I was just too self-absorbed to write back. I did like writing to you, but I thought you’d

be around forever.

And at fifteen, when you died, I was too young to understand what I had lost. Your mother, your

sisters, your brother, your cousins, they cried for you, and we painted your tomb.

I had flown back to you, but it was too late. Your face was a puffy mask. It didn’t look like a face.

But that was the first time I’d been beside your body since I left, so I looked even though I knew it was all

wrong. You were not there to see my return. So, I turned to your tomb with the rest of them.

“Art is for champions!” you wrote to me, “And you are a real good artist like me.” I painted your

tomb and stuck colored stones into the cement.

Your mother, my abuela, hugged me. “Mi Indi cariñoso, te amo.” You were not coming back, so

she held me. Her golondrina had flown away and was never coming back. I am my father’s son, a

golondrina to sit at my abuela’s side and hold her beating heart. And now that I am old enough to cry for

you, she holds me too. And we have your paintings on our walls and your brushes in our drawers.

I have folders full of your paintings.

“I hope you enjoy this little present,” you wrote, when you sent me a new creation.

But these are all echoes of our golondrina. I want you to come back to me. Please. Come back to

your son. I know what you felt now. I know the hopeless pain you felt to see the sun set. The birds could

blanket the skies and never comfort your thorned heart. I take out your brushes and my paints, and I sit

down. I call to you. Please, come back to me, my sweet golondrina, my Papá. And your face takes shape

on my paper, and your loving hands hold mine. And you tell me, “just let your self flow on the canvas and

touch at the last stroke as if it was the begining of the piece!!!!” And I paint your face, and for a moment

you come back to me, and I am a thorned soul, far from reality, and I hail the cypresses and the

golondrinas.

Grave in the Forest

Utter the words out loud

and so come the vines

born from the pollen carried by the butterflies in the stomach

trancing up through the throat

branching out across the face

thorns erupting from those smooth green stalks

digging into the eyes

tears of blood rain down

blinded by the want, blind to the need

The vines tangle around the body now

never strong enough to make a move

you will see no flowers here

leaves rustle in the wind

hedging their bets on a fall that never comes

by then the blood will be dried

the feeling a grave in the forest

And I tell myself it is all just chemistry

emotions, the growth of the vines, and the death of everything

no one has ever been so wrong.

Open Letter

to body,

standing by the kitchen countertop at nine pm on a Saturday:

enough is sufficient.

we know fullness

little child we wandered distracted from the dining room table

—household cat curled up in the sunlight—

we know. and yet like many we are still searching

this year’s salvation is not in the bottom of a wine glass but in the empty pint of sugar-free ice cream

it is hidden in the back of the refrigerator, and we are still standing there with the door wide open 

we have memorized the contents but we will never tire of looking.

to body:

it will be forthcoming. there is honey in the rock for all mom’s children

food again for breakfast

someday we will break the habit of licking our plate clean

there is always surplus.

so we learned frugality in the space between the dinner table and the empty porcelain

serving dishes and dished out portions

spare ribs and turkey thigh gaps and extra lean cheekbones.

now body is fighting. body is packing flesh like tissue paper on our thin gift-wrapped skeleton

body scrabbles for the dirty plates and abandoned leftovers

body waits crouched under the veneer of civilization for any scraps that it knows might fall

body is still young. we are teaching it not to hide from strangers

not to cower under the covers

but body learns slow. body doesn’t know we are no longer fighting

body doesn’t know it is no longer starving

body just hasn’t quite learned that now, finally, it can come out and play.

A letter from the country

The vines hang however on the trellis
Since no hand arranges them
Their tangle stays unmanaged
And their twigs invade the vegetable garden
And the rags dry with the clothing
And the orchard will not conform to the property line

Four weeks of hard work wasted
Clearing bramble, raking leaves
Hell, take it: I'll sit here
Satisfied, with the stars for company.