mommy and me

my mommy sits in a brassy, old picture frame
dusty, like everything else in grandma’s house
grandma often calls me by mommy’s name
a slip of the tongue, a bite of the cheek

and i have learned to love it
to hear the sounds of
each passing syllable blending into the next
until an abrupt stop and face-palming sigh

and deep in the tendons of my hands,
i will feel a begging
for her to finish with
the final exclamation of vowelmush

so i may hold my mommy’s hands,
and caress her burns for a moment
so i may catch a glimpse of her
beyond the bathroom mirror.

my mommy lives in the screen of a phone
in pink flower emojis and “Te quiero, Mija” texts
reaching out to hold me in each drumroll down
the hankering holes of my ear canals

ring!
ring!
ring!
ring!

and i will grasp that phone to my ear
as tenderly as a newborn babe
as desperately as your last dollar
if i hold it just right

maybe mommy will transcend
this iphone screen
and hold me
one last time.

my mommy was my first shelter
but what good is a house that has been set aflame
like the suitcases that refused to shut each time mommy and i ran
you cannot stuff even the softest of couches

nor the brightest of lamps
into the shape of sanctuary
and daughters cannot save their mothers
despite our most manic tries

but, oh, how i tried!
until the mightiest men of the fire department
ran to hose me down, dripping in love and ichor
hope and ash

mommy, i never got to ask you
did you try just as manically as i?
and your mother before you?
these homes of women who loved violent men—

were you born with smoke in your lungs,
from grandma’s inhalation of her own burning house?
does my skin refuse to blister, even in scorching season
because our blood runs burnt as the curtains?

mommy, you are so far tonight
when i fled three-thousand miles
trading the monsters in the closet
for the wild deer of williamsburg

did i forget to take you with me?
not even the california wildfires
and the deepest days of a pacific july,
make me sweat as he did

oh mommy, i know you couldn’t foresee,
what daddy would do to you and to me.

oh mommy, it started just a flickering flame,
and now i watch you, from a picture frame.