Letters

Old letters (10-7-2020)

Electrified passions
flare out
dim down
once again,
in this distance of time:
love, sadness,
fears, hatred.
Conflicts.
Discoveries.

Letters rattle,
challenge tales
of doubtful veracity
I told myself
in angst,
to smooth edges
of lived,
senseless
moments in life.

Letters heal,
rearranging paths
within my psyche.
Casting new light
in misperceptions,
showing me
who you were,
who I was.

I wish I had
this clarity
when we used
kind actions
to show love
to each other.
Regretting you died
before we could
say the words.

Reading voyage
completed.
Waves of love
and acceptance,
tickle my chest.
Gratitude. Your
letters delivered
a new intimacy
between us

Relationships with
our loved dead ones
continues evolving

Letters from Mama

Twenty-five-years dormant
inside a memory box, now
reawakened on my desk.

Challenging me

to read them, risking
the undoing of the stories
I’ve long told myself.

Slowly unfolding the fine
tissues, crease by crease,
my fingers slide over
your handwritten confession.

Your silent rages,
all those depressions
buried under covers.
That raw anger at dad
still disturbing

the girl within me.

Your ire at not having me
by your side when he died.
I promise to never stop
apologizing for my neglect.

Finally ready to tackle
your tragic life,
I finger the brittle paper
you once touched.
I cuddle your hands in mine.

Now I see

how you hated
your irrationality.
How his death drove you
to exorcise your demons
in arduous therapy, reaching
out so hard for inner peace.

That dad was in fact
the good and happy
man I remember
relieves the weight of
believing you hated him.

The icy wall between us
begins to melt.
I never had to protect dad.

I see that now.

10-9-2020

Postcards from Childhood Sidewalks

Such freedom
running along
these chaotic sidewalks.
In and out
of strangers’ homes,
who embraced me
and insisted I try cookies
from their countries.

Those Italian amaretti.
Russian pirowski.
Polish kolaczki.

All those delicious accents.

*

At midday,
faraway sounds
from the Sagrado Corazón.
Its basilica bells
reminded me:
we were all sinners,
there was a heaven, and a hell.
Watching meats grilling on racks
over incandescent red coals,

I wondered: Is this how we too burn?

*

Indelible
that day I grew wings,
soared above sidewalks
carrying the brand new rattan chair
my mother saved so long for, just
bought off a horse-drawn carriage.

An almost tragedy, I fell inside
a dry culvert. I sat on my chair

waiting to be found, like any body,
four feet below street level.

*

Haunting,
the Virgin Mary being carried
by sinners along sidewalks
from the basilica to our home.

She stayed with us for a week,
once a year.

Neighbors visited, lit candles
and prayed, mumbling
words I had not yet learned,
that no one cared to translate.

I always avoided being
alone in her presence.

The Virgin still scares me.