A dream escapes itself.
Goodbye dream, a little boy says.
Is a dream nothing more than the silent play of indolence?
The boy has already forgotten.
I am lulled into nonexistence.
Cars pass. Water streams off tires. Fireworks exhale dust.
A mist settled here once.
It drew in the collective breaths of all the inhabitants within the city.
A blanket unfolding into itself.
Nevermind.
A bright death swept through me.
The sun drank my body like ambrosia.
I became the abyss.
Or perhaps always had been.
The pavement is grey with dampness.
Vapours rise.
The world escapes itself.
But no one is there to notice.

City came underwater
Circling itself
Fumbling through wet cloth
Rain soaked, rain soaked

Flooded all the mean streets
Dead ends
Singing like the cold stream
Running through our summer sweat

That moment ten years ago
Swore we’d die, but not like this
Broken like the old oak
Salt on your lips

With the memory of sweet honey comb in mouth and the sting of nettles on my fingertips,
I am coming home to myself.
It is easy to forget where my heart lies;
silencing it when it calls out from my chest or giving it over to someone with careless hands.
I was once a child whose heart spoke in a language only I and nature could understand
so I sit here, struggling to remember my native tongue;
my hands still stinging, my teeth still stained with the sweetness
and a heart that is saying "welcome home"

—for Mariel



She sells 2 sole paltas beside street  
vendors who whistle at crop-top-clad girls,
spewing profanities complete
with broken English. She has four girls
hungry at home. They dream of science, stars,
constellations that spiral and sparr
with particles that make us what we are —

interrupted by howling dogs, the 5
AM tamale man, and stray **** crows.
Amid dust-clouds of Zona D, the sun arrives
over the peak Luis claims once exposed
his innocent eyes to an angel: one
tale of faith raised on culture come undone
presently. Poet Andrea Gibson

writes, “I said to the sun, ‘Tell me about
the Big Bang.’ And the sun said, ‘it hurts to
become.’” At dusk, Mariel takes a Combi out
sixteen stops from Quince, up 302
steps to a turquoise shack and a red rose
garden, and plants avocado seeds at her toes.
Poco a poco, se anda lejos.

She who perched on the windowsill,
Allowing time to float through,
White, grey clouds passing slowly,
Admiring books on wooden shelves,
How valiant they stand,
Against the race first and second place,
Each page a testament to dedication,
Covers touching, a balancing act in motion.
She who perched, deserted,
Coins carefully scraped from bottoms of bags,
Pockets emptied deep into the night,
How those notes slipped so easily
from hand to stranger in times gone by.
She who prayed silently
For an unfound discovery,
How great she became at singing the others tune,
Rejoicing in poets long gone,
Humming the others lyrics so frequently.