At 21, the Jordan River baptized me,
at last – my mother was exuberant:
her first-born saved from being
young, drunk, and beautiful. On the
third day, we swam in the Dead Sea.
I tried to float, but, my doubts weighed
me down and I did not rise. A week later,
I watched my mother kneel in the
Garden of Gethsemane, eyes closed,
head bent in fervent prayer. Afterwards,
we walked Via Dolorosa, her feet blistered
and so we exchanged sandals. I slipped hers
on and swallowed the ominous lump in my
throat. Even then, months before the brain
tumors, and hospital visits, I somehow knew
it was the last time I would walk in her shoes.
And so I walked the Way of Sorrows, missing
her impending absence even as she stood beside
me, as my hair turned white with grief for what
I knew was soon to come.

I am bound to her by blood,
this madwoman of a city
with eyes that see
a comatose heart, with no feeling.

One, two, three hundred,
a thousand —
we are all carbon copies
of her silicone *******, collagen cheeks
teeth bleached whiter
than the pearls we adorn ourselves with.

I was a child
when I left this madwoman,
mother of my younger years.
I left her drinking cuba libres,
stirring ice with her finger,
her nails crimson red.

I said, “Goodbye, I am leaving you.”
She turned her face back to the barrio
and said, “Adios, Muchacha.”

Years later, I look back on my youth.
I remember her as the mother I lost
the sister I never had
the woman I was afraid to become.

If only she knew
how easy she was to leave
how difficult she was to forget.