Clap When You Land(17)

He always smiles at me in the hallway & invites me to drop by training sessions but has never pressured me to rejoin the team.

When I hear his voice

my heart squeezes, a wrung-out sponge,

& I wonder what will happen to the phone if I drop it into the filled sink. Will it float on suds or be weighed down to the bottom?

How does the water learn to readjust around the new object?

Could we nestle the phone in rice, revive it into ringing again?

Mami looks up sharply from the table

& gives me her look.

“Thank you, Coach,” I say to his kind remarks.

Who knew death must be so damn polite?





Our apartment has plastic-covered leather sofas, windows with frilly curtains;

my mother decorates with wide sashes, color-coded to match the season.

There’s a small courtyard out back

where we held summer barbecues for the family & neighbors. Unlike most of my friends’ families, Papi & Ma owned our apartment in the co-op.

Bought it when they found out

Mami was pregnant with a girl.

Papi said his queens needed a castle & Morningside Heights would provide.

More & more, I sit on the fire escape just to get a chance to breathe.

Our house these days is a choked-up throat.

I cannot exhale myself out the front door.

This is no castle. It’s an altar to a man, a National Geographic shrine;

the house is a living sadness, & as Mami walks its halls at night, even the floorboards weep.





Fifteen Days After


It’s Saturday.

After three p.m.

I lie in bed.

The doorbell rings.

Maybe Mami will get it.

Footsteps coming down the hall.

Soft padding

that doesn’t belong to Tío Jorge or Mami.

Soft murmurs outside my door.

More than one person came inside.

Mami’s quivering voice & another tone more sure.

My door’s pushed open.

I keep my eyes closed.

If they are intruders I hope they steal everything, especially the weight on my chest.

I hear sneakers

thump on the ground.

Then a body settles on my bed.

“Move over,” Dre says.

She must have come over with Dr. Johnson,

otherwise she would have ducked through the window.

I am right; I hear Dr. Johnson’s measured murmur cutting through my mother’s choked voice.

Dre puts her arms around me.

& it’s the first time I’ve let myself be held since Papi died.





When Dre grabs the bottle of acetone from on top my dresser I’m surprised.

If it weren’t for me, the only decoration on her nails would be specks of soil.

But it’s not her nails she’s concerned with.

She takes a little ball of cotton & begins removing the polish from mine.

Despite having done the same for Mami’s nails yesterday, it’s only then I notice, I’ve bitten the color off my own.

When both my hands

are clean & she’s filed the nails down for me, I grab her face. Her eyes are calm.

My old-soul girlfriend. Always watching.

Always watching out for me.

We share a breath before I kiss her, before I bite back the hitch of tears.





Positive identifications have been made, & Papi’s gold-tooth smile was among them.

Tío Jorge & his wife,

Tía Mabel, show up at 4:05 p.m.

My mother’s sister, Tía Lidia,

& my cousin Wilson show up at 4:32.

My father’s cousins, who work at the billiards, show up at 5:12.

The family comes with food, with Bibles, with worry sewn into the creases of their foreheads.

There is no music playing.

The men talk quietly in the living room & sip Johnnie Walker.

When Tía Lidia & Mami go to her room to pray, Tía Mabel appoints herself the general of logistics, doing the things that Ma has been unable or unwilling to do.

She calls a cousin about flowers, a childhood neighbor about casket costs.

She calls a church a few blocks away to have his name read at morning mass for a week.

She calls a relative in the Dominican Republic, is quiet a long time while someone on the other end speaks.

There is a call made to El Diario newspaper about publishing an obituary.

My cousin Wilson sits on hold with the airline, trying to see when we can claim what is left.

The other women come back from the bedroom.

Mami’s eyes are dry & hard.

Discussion turns to burial plots & whether or not the remains should be taken to DR.

My father was the one who always threw the get-togethers & even in death, he brings us all home.





Tío Jorge breaks away from the men when he sees me standing

in the living room doorway,

swaying on my feet.

He leads me to my father’s favorite chair, awkwardly pats back my hair. I curl into his hand.

Tío Jorge & Tía Mabel do not have children but they would have made great parents.

Tío Jorge knows how to listen.