NAYELLY BARRIOS

Triptych for My Mother


1


I remember      how you dug through the trash bin 
                        for remains of your neck         how you cried 
            as you puzzled     your smiling head 
                                                                        back onto your body
How I thought             it’s just a picture
           you took weeks ago                              I still remember that woman
my child’s game of cut 
                                    & paste dismembered
            creaseless face             
                        mesquite hair   
                                                 that playful pose

2

Because at your age 
                         it is a feat 
            you announce that your body 
                                                has smeared 
            a heavy smog of red 
                                                on your underwear

3

We sit by a deer-horn cactus   watch slivers
                                                 of the moon     unknit   Queen of the Night
                                                                                                 buds at the seam    
 
                        I tell you          they only bloom once a year 
                                                petals under the moon tonight
                                                will be dry crescents   
                                                             under the cactus tomorrow 

                        you swear        this is the second time
                                                they bloom this summer     
 
                        say                   they’ll bloom again

            A neck crooks                          toward the fullness of the moon 
                                                             extends its limbs 
                                                                         in one heavy sigh

 


103  The Paris-American

Nayelly Barrios is a Rio Grande Valley native. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Puerto del Sol, and DIAGRAM. She has been featured as the LoWriter of the Week on Poet Juan Felipe Herrera's website and is a recent participant of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She is a founding editor of Ostrich Review.

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   Next week's poet:

 Tory Adkisson