A is for Abigail, who shared with you a kindergarten trauma and
then forgot who you were in eighth grade, like Belinda, who
left without a word one sunday morning after mass, C is
Catalina, your best friend’s ex-best friend, who went
with you to Daana’s book launch in texas, and
Enrique, who you planned to room with in college but you hear from friends
crashed his car into a tree and joined the saints, but Flores had
another kid and his man bun is
slicker than ever and Gumaro, who you helped teach
english in fourth grade is still
hitting the gym beside Hiris, even as she
works at la perla full time and overtime, beside Isabella who
no white girl would talk to in middle school because they said she
smelled like dirt, or Juliana, punching
numbers into a cash register at the dollar general thinking
of falling in love with Kruz who made a
perfect vanilla cupcake candle in home ec but couldn’t
cook steak to save his life.  
Lucio remembers kissing you on the mouth in the church
nursery but he is now engaged to a white girl you’ve
never met, and he remembers a particular
messy Maria who would draw like her life
depended on it, and a Nadia who would cry in english 11
because her parents couldn’t help her with the homework
but still kiss him after her soccer games, who no longer
bothers to call Olivia, even though they were teammates for
a decade and now she works at her own sports shop with
a daughter who could have gone pro if only.
Profe, who was a migrant “helper” at your elementary school,
laughs at it all, remembering yelling at parents in spanglish,
although you heard her husband yelling at her on the phone at lunch,
laughing when Quito broke one of the chairs that the school bought with
its 4 million dollar bond that drained money and morale, who went
out with Romani and started a band in seventh grade that took
longer than usual to fizzle out, and the bullying stopped for a while, though
Sergio would never forget how it felt to bend down for hours with
bad black bruises up his back, wouldn’t ever stop
reliving every labored breath spent both here and there.  
And Thalia couldn’t even make a living, recalling almost
forgotten days of swingsets and slurping
pelon pelo rico tamarindo under the orange tube slide.  
Her ex-husband Umberto everybody but the feds
forgot about, and V is for Victor, the high school goalie who had to quit because he
strained his wrists in the fields, like Wanita, who is trying to raise
money for her second hip replacement, like father Xavier, who carves statues of
woodland creatures for the children he could never have, and
Yesenia, who sewed and sewed until her fingers curled and her
forehead wrinkled beyond repair, and she tells you that Zaida, who made the
best tamales in town, is now gone to the saints, and no longer
fears anything, even the government and their obsession with
small white slips of paper.

So much in a name, in a hyphen, in a tilde, but no, it
should be under V—“virgulilla,” and their names should be
written in your address book but instead
they’re in a list at some office in
the States underneath “undocumented” and “illegal.”

Welcome it, everyone, with open hearts,
from feathery wings of angels;
Its clarity washes away each tear,
and blankets us from all angles.

The evergreens swathed in oyster white,
exquisitely aligned with holly berries;
Which light up the yard in rosy glow,
and comfort us from our worries.

No longer alone the cardinals fly,
and meet their mates high above;
Cheerfully sitting upon the branches,
nestling together with wintry love.

Gracefully floating through the air,
like delicate lace from times long ago;
While we watch this glorious solstice scene,
enchanted by the sight of first snow !

I close my eyes and
Try to imagine all the
Impossible things—

The things that God has
Done that I simply can’t wrap
My little head ‘round—

The continents He’s
Designed, the canyons forged and
The rivers that He

Made to flow, all the
Flowers He taught to grow that
Bloom in their seasons.

The world sings of the
Power of God, of the One
Creator of all.

This world He did sculpt
All for us with His perfect
Paintbrushes of love.

It’s not raining
But sometimes words fall
Down like rain.
Sometimes they come in a
Deluge
        Flood
               Monsoon
Or whip around like a
               Wind storm
        Tornado
Hurricane
And instead of building up, they
Destroy.
It’s not raining
And the sky is blue and not gray
And instead of bad I kind of feel okay
But the fact still remains
That we sit here and say
“We need to talk”
And yet
All we do is sit here
Surrounded by the blue
Wishing for it to
Rain
       Deluge
                 Flood        
Anything.
But all we’re doing is
Sitting in a drought.