248 Family poems

I. SKIN & CORN Her brown skin glistens as the sun pours through the kitchen window like gold leche. After grinding the nixtamal , a word so beautifully ethnic it must not only be italicized but underlined to let you, the reader, know you’ve encountered something beautifully ethnic, she kneads with the hands of centuries-old ancestor spirits who magically yet realistically posses her until the masa is smooth as a lowrider’s chrome bumper. And I know she must do this with care because it says so on a website that explains how to make homemade corn tortillas. So much labor for this peasant bread, this edible art birthed from Abuelitas’s brown skin, which is still glistening in the sun. II. APOLOGY Before she died I called my abuelita grandma. I cannot remember if she made corn tortillas from scratch but, O, how she’d flip the factory fresh El Milagros (Quality Since 1950) on the burner, bathe them in butter & salt for her grandchildren. How she’d knead the buttons on the telephone, order me food from Pizza Hut. I assure you, gentle reader, this was done with the spirit of Mesoamérica ablaze in her fingertips.

Its fine incisors grinding my mother fed my father’s fledgling carpentry concern into her adding machine as if its hunger could be satisfied costs and savings spooling to our wooden kitchen floor and pooling amounting to nothing a shop tool’s shavings.

We ate at the table every night when they were small phones not allowed which they hated at the time my daughter texted me last week she eats at the table with her roommate she said it felt right

I still buy things she likes by accident after eight months apple juice those specific chips i put them back or i don't depends on the day

Sports day was a disaster she came last in three events first in one she told me the one she won twice on the way home i asked about the others she shrugged good instincts honestly

My middle one is quiet the one you have to check on easy to miss in the noise of the others she has a whole life going on i try to remember to ask about it she tells me things she doesn't tell her mother i take that seriously

Five more minutes then five more then one more hug then one more question then water forty-five minutes later we're done tomorrow we do it again

three kids is a lot more than i expected to love more than i thought i had room for turns out love doesn't work like space you don't divide it you just keep making more