The moon abandons me and everything becomes

a narcotic. Wind blowing out light and

rain so hard metal things are being knocked around.

It’s ruthless the way downpour begs soil for newness

in twisted and desperate prayer. I loved you from below with

commas, and commas, and commas, and lime juice.

Deep back fields, barefoot and singing something about grass.

Held you up by your armpits on the cold Boston stoop I

clutched your hands as you gnawed the small wooden parrot figurine

meant for your grandmother, insisting the world would fall away.

That winter I planted thirteen gardenias in those same palms

so you would not slip on your sickness. You

loved me from above and sometimes threw down a shovel.

Kissing panela mouths tumbling down a hallway of

oranges. Days worth, hours, vibrating in tea gardens and

rescuing old dusty hidden dreams and fears.

Striking sun out of sky your ginger lips cried to me that I

was not the moon. I, return the sun’s light with equal intensity

my beloved circle keeps some of it for herself.

I listen to you weep and it sounds like bells it always

sounded like bells. I heard a black dog barking in the night

and shooed it away with golden onions like your Tita taught me.

You gifted me un-tempered objects—pearls and raindrops

suspended in roped air. My right arm twitches to the drops of

rain the way all things that move make music.

Gravity not being a given, gravity not being

a coincidence, and love being confused for gravity.

Sinking into my pile of seeds and symbols

no light reaches this cave. The moon abandons me and

everything becomes a narcotic. I do not sleep most nights.

Mattresses piled high like the princess from the books.

Instead of a pea—a seed, a pearl, a raindrop. An asterisk.