Caramuca

I always loved the name.

It was your street, gravel roads and

tamarind trees. You let me play in it.

Grandma,

you let me play in it.

Now everything is buzzing with the echo of your voice,

like a night veil

reaching the end of the world.

Cocoa beans,

huevitos fritos,

swish swish swish

on the granite floor.

Grandma, you're awake. Can we feed the chickens? Swish swish swish One last time. I'm disembodied. I'm drowning in mud,

tadpoles in my socks. It poured last night. A raid of thunder

festooned my heart.

Your home.

In the big tank

for emergencies only,

you washed me up.

Grandma,

a made-up pool. Oh, we look so happy.

Swish swish swish Tell me about it when I'm grown.

My mom's voice

is on the phone. I've been waiting.

The elevator's hum

reverberates deep

inside my head.

I'm translucent

by no means of my own.

It hurts like hell to lose a mother.

She's preparing me. Her pain is abject,

sordid, black.

Mine will be too.

And she knows it

for the first time.

It comes in waves. Es un dolor inmenso.

It looks like your street.

It smells like your skin. It sounds like kernels

in a plastic bucket.

Swish swish swish

Grandma, I'm here.

I'm in your living room

watching T.V.

En La Caramuca. I'm in the hammock,

swinging my legs,

kicking your clouds. And I can't stop laughing.