Both Mirrors

I meet your eyes

You stare at me like the levy gazes upon the water,

Holding it at bay

Keeping it just low enough

That it will not overflow

And wrench the roots, painstakingly curated, from the shore

Branches I have pruned and shaped

With an attention to detail

I know you find both admirable and appalling

I hate all my clothes

The way they hang off me like a noose

And my clothes are hours

Someone exchanged for dollars

Hours spent spinning thread

And weaving me together

So, what I hate is the passage of time on my body

But I could have told you that

Relentless and crushing is the change

I see it in the taught skin

And the gradual lengthening of the shadows

I ask politely for answers

And when I am denied, I scream

Until my throat is raw

And blood runs through my teeth

Do you mistake me for blind?

Do you question that which we both see?

The quivering of time through the leaves

The cloth billowing beneath my arms

The light falls on us both

But only one does it wrap in its arms

Squeezing, stretching, warping until I am forced

To shrink

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Hermanita

There is joy amidst the mud

Dancing through the frigid stream

If the leaves start falling

Will you still be here?

I see you and you are beautiful

Framed like Aphrodite against the mountains

But you do not float

For there is freezing water seeping through your shoes

The curse of age is hindsight

Hauntings orchestrated by the living

Cascades of blonde curls, your feeble arms clinging to my waist

I, always taller, but you, pure determination

I see green growth sprouting from you

As your limbs twist towards the heavens

Reaching for the sunlight

For the first time, I fear you may overtake me

I see nights filled with languid footsteps

And raucous laughter

In a city whose name I have yet to learn

Where the streetlights replace the stars

And solitude is a joke we all share

Where opinions are currency

Exchanged over candlelit dinners

And the promise of now

These nights hang suspended from branches

As if I, sentenced to eternal hunger,

Might never be able to reach the satiating fruit

My growth stunted

Dry air and brittle soil conspire to ruin me

And while your roots are not strongly in this earth

Your arms, green and hopeful,

Always threatening to overtake mine,

May not yet suffer the curse of Tantalus

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The Birth of Venus

The heart beating beneath your skin,

Raw flesh, that once pumped my own blood

I do not remember what the light looked like

When the cool kiss of the scalpel first touched my chest

Perhaps the first cut was lips on my neck

Or a brush of the hand

Butterfly wings landing on the tender leaf of the milkweed

Some glances I gave you, while pieces of me you took

But this you stole

My mother tells me it is a gift

That in my youth I will be free

In a foreign land with nothing but my 20s

Salt crystals in the air to scrape you from my skin

As I dive naked from the cliff

And when my body hits the sea

At once, I will no longer bleed for you

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La amenaza del Invierno

Once, you took scissors and cut yourself bangs

To feel the thrill of the illicit

Chopping away at hair that

Grew from your head the day

You were born

It lived your whole life with you

And God, did you hate that

For you had changed, but it had not

Your first haircut, an act of protest

You may not remember, but I do

There is now cinnamon spiraling from your scalp

Once spun from liquid gold

It smells of fall, of the dying leaves

Of chestnuts roasted in carts on bustling city streets

The winter threatens you

Giggling through your nightmares

So, you lift your fists to the sky

And scream ferociously into the wind

That your anger is inherited

There is no doubt

And though the wind steals your shouts

They still circle in the mist

And while you fear the tolling sound

I have secrets left to share

There are tiny footprints in the dust

Leading to the chicken coop

You hold your flashlight like a sword

You woke again to protect the speckled hen

From the fox with the beguiling teeth

That you already distrust the fox

Is a lesson one so young should not yet learn

Wise beyond your years, but innocence still prevails

For without the flashlight in your little fist,

Your escape from bed would remain shrouded in darkness

A choice, to illuminate your own illicit rebellion

And as I watch from the window

I cannot help my twinge of pride

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The Hawk

You brush my shoulder with a feathery touch

As if you fear I’ll fly away

If you press too hard into my skin

In your dreams you see a bluebird

But in the daylight, a hawk lies in wait

She does not nest, head under wing

She hunts

Even a predator is beautiful until she goes for the throat

I do not pretend

I point to the hawk whenever I see her

Screaming wildly at her beady eyes

And red tinged claws

You are either blind or a liar

Because I see you writing bird songs

When you think my head is turned

You smile now

With a breezy grin and winter eyes

But she is circling you

And she will do what it takes to survive

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