After working out,
I come home.

My sister
my mother
are both asleep,
my father is alone
washing dishes in the kitchen.

Outside in the street,
there is something
about rain-fall I will love forever,
but there is nothing to love when
the sidewalk turns into
suburban everglades.

There in the kitchen I see you
standing at the sink, waiting
for your son to get home.

My father has not caused
the rain to stop and grow humid.
My father is
washing dishes left over by his
family. I am standing
in the hallway and say: “hi.”

Outside in the street, the
rain-fall has stopped
and left clouds of dry heat.

There in the house
I am swallowed up

and I remember my grandmother’s
hands becoming too weak
to make pasteles.

But still she stood there
cleaning those dishes
in her last afternoons,
waiting for
my father to get home.

So there you are,
aching, and worrying,
somewhat like her, but
somewhat more confident
now that I’m here.