<\/em>my mother hands me
<\/em>dishes to wash\u2014
even when you\u2019re not.<\/em>
<\/em> <\/em>I watch her turn
the faucet on,
<\/em>my hands heat
under the water
<\/em>and I wonder
who told her
<\/em>she had to be open
twenty-four\/seven.
<\/em>How many times
did she lie, split
<\/em>open, reviewing
a mental list of things
<\/em>to be done tomorrow?
Did she learn
<\/em>over the years:
where to kiss,
<\/em>when to touch,
how to suck to help
<\/em>her husband finish
quick\u2014to end
<\/em>the chore. To make
more time to be
<\/em>the good wife, the one
who makes floorboards
<\/em>reflect the moon
when it comes
<\/em>through the window,
to make sure
<\/em>he doesn\u2019t drift into
another woman\u2019s body\u2014
<\/em>to say yes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
When My Little Sister Mistakes Selena for Selena Gomez<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I whip around so fast she gets whiplash. No sister after Ada Lim\u00f3n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bare feet and a sunflower<\/p>\n\n\n\n dress, she stood<\/p>\n\n\n\n beside her mother<\/p>\n\n\n\n on the sidewalk, under<\/p>\n\n\n\n a tree at six years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before her baby was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n she moved an ocean away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n they became strangers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n they stopped talking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the broken ceramic spoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the divorce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n she returned<\/p>\n\n\n\n from Mexico with no room<\/p>\n\n\n\n left to hold her mother\u2019s pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the land between them<\/p>\n\n\n\n split and she grew brave<\/p>\n\n\n\n enough to save the child,<\/p>\n\n\n\n she once was, from the house<\/p>\n\n\n\n that belonged to her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She never knew<\/p>\n\n\n\n how it would feel<\/p>\n\n\n\n to be mothered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a newly minted divorc\u00e9e, my mother traveled to Europe with her friends and bounced from Barcelona to Rota to Morocco to Krak\u00f3w and then to Auschwitz. She wanted to go places she claimed my dad never wanted to go. Along the way she picked up souvenirs for my partner and me\u2014small things that we didn\u2019t need but that she felt she needed to buy. Two sets of a porcelain tea-bag coaster with the silhouette of a cat and a matching porcelain spoon: Made in Poland. It had been a year since I distanced myself from her and found a therapist. I told her I needed space, but she still called. Still texted. Still became agitated when I didn\u2019t pick up on the first ring. Still enraged when I didn\u2019t respond altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I unwrapped the spoons, and one of the heads fell to the floor. The porcelain spoon arrived broken at the neck. In our living room, I sat with a piece in each hand. The blue flowers with black centers glossed in the light. I pressed my thumb into the spoon\u2019s mouth and sighed. My partner asked Do you want to throw it away?<\/em> I shook my head. It held more beauty than its intact partner spoon. I couldn\u2019t throw it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, I found a small white shadow box, laid it inside, and closed it in. My mother was mothering with this spoon. This was hers: black, blue, white, flowered, and fractured. Would mine look like this? Would it be soft and split\u2014at the neck? The pieces tapped against the glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
of mine will confuse Selena with Selena Gomez.
I say Se<\/em>–len<\/em>–a <\/em>slow and enunciate the Spanish
because when you say Selena in Spanish every
Tejana knows you\u2019re praying to the Queen of Tejano.
La Reina de Cumbia. Patron saint of red lipstick,
pizza, bombass bustiers, purple jumpsuits,
and washing machine hips. A name untouched
by the American tongue. She\u2019s the patron saint
of Latinas everywhere: a light embossed into memory
that we can be something more in this borderland
of tongues. On this American soil so quick to tie
our names down to English\u2014because don\u2019t you know
Selena Gomez was named after Selena. America just
turned her name into something it could pronounce.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPortrait of a Daughter and her Mother on the Sidewalk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Porcelain Spoons<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n
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