Self Portrait as Someone Trying to be Soft

I see my grandma in the man 

making the sign of the cross at the edge of the street  

Hear the sister I don't have

checking my card and telling me it won't work 

if I'm coming from across the border 

pointing to the empty air behind her 

like she heard someone calling for me 

I see a baby kissing her mom’s belly 

See my mom grow into my reflection as I get upset 

I make it okay 

I make it make sense

We are all just children riding in the beds of trucks 

Holding hands and playing pretend 

I see my youngest brother trying coke for the first time at fifteen 

I see him in every car I pass getting pulled over

I see myself crying next to him crying to a cop crying next to us

My new year's resolution is to cry more 

I see that one new year’s where midnight came 

and all any of us could do was cry 

My aunts started first then my uncles and when it finally reached me  

I couldn't get the wails quite right (ayayay)

Crying became baptism 

and we worshiped until light 

My grandma looks likes shes about to cry

everytime we say goodbye 

Her breath hitches at the end of her words like a question 

Mija, I love you? Que dios te cuida, OK?  I love you? 

I love you? Bye?

I see myself reborn a mother, a daughter, a lover, a wife 

I dream about stillness 

I dream about frozen windshield wipers with their arms pointed to the sky

waiting for me to come home

Published in Sprung Formal, Issue 18, 2023