Clap When You Land(19)

& if my mother paid attention

at a single one of my matches

she knows: when Yahaira Rios smiles

just before she makes a move,

you better watch the fuck out.





Mami, is a good woman, a good woman.

Mami is smart & shows up to school conferences, Mami is a good woman, a good woman.

she works hard & always makes dinner.

Mami is a good woman, a good woman.

She never forgot to pick me up from school, Mami is a good woman, a good woman.

she sewed my sweaters when I pulled a button, Mami is a good woman, a good woman,

mended the holes I tore in my new jeans.

Mami is a good woman, a good woman,

she buys thoughtful presents & kisses loudly, Mami is a good woman, a good woman,

& I know I failed her.





Mami wanted a girl she could raise in her own image, & I came forth a good girl, a good girl, but so much of me when I was younger seems crafted

from my father’s spit, as if he shone

a light on her womb & pressed a fingerprint onto my forehead, baptized me his alone; I have words that I have kept secret from Mami, words a better daughter would have said.

I am my father’s daughter, a bad daughter, a bad daughter to a great woman.





The thing I learned about my father

is like a smudge

on an all-white dress.

You hope if you don’t look at it, if you don’t rub your finger in the spot then maybe it won’t spread. Then maybe it will be unnoticed.

But it’s always there.

A glaring fault.





Papi had another wife.

I found the marriage certificate.

The date on the form

was a few months after

my parents’ own marriage

here in the States.

& as if to ensure

that anyone who stumbled across this envelope

got it right, there was also a small picture included. My father with a beautiful brown woman with long dark hair,

both of them in all white as she carried a bouquet,

smiling up into his face while he stared steadily

& seriously at the camera.

My father had another wife, & I know my mother

could not have known.

Could not have been the type to stay, while her husband strayed year after year after year.

This other woman,

the reason my father left me, left us broke trust ignored the family he left behind.

& when he returned last summer, I didn’t know how to look

him in the face & pretend.

So it was easier not to look at him at all.

When the only words I owned were full of venom, it seemed better to stop speaking to this man since the only option was to poison us all.





Camino Yahaira


Nineteen Days After


I haven’t talked to El Cero since he last approached me, but today, as I’m squeezing the water from my hair, he comes out from behind the trees.

Vira Lata was chewing on some bones as I left the house & didn’t join me on this trip to the water, but still I scan the tree line hoping to see him napping in the shade.

A small patch of short curly hair springs up from the neck of El Cero’s shirt. I am reminded he might smile boyishly, but he is not a boy.

I am glad I am near home,

that there are houses beyond the clearing.

Because in this moment, I am a girl a man stares at: I am not a mourning girl. I am not a grieving girl.

I am not a parentless girl. I am not a girl without means.

I am not an aunt’s charity case. I am not almost-alone.

None of those things matter.

He approaches, wide-mouth smiling.

“I have my motorbike.” He points. “Want a ride home?”

He wraps his hand around my wrist.





I snatch my arm away as my cell phone starts ringing.

I scramble to grab the phone from my back pocket.

Tía’s name flashes on the screen.

“?Aló, Tía?” I back away from El Cero.

Tía does not say one word

but I hear the tears in her sharp breaths.

“They found him. I just got word that four days ago they found what is left of him.

& they have decided to bring him home.”

I murmur to Tía but know she cannot hear me.

A body means there is no miracle to hope for; dead is dead is dead. For four days I didn’t know.

You did know, I tell myself.

We knew there were no survivors.

But somehow this proof sledgehammers my heart.

Someone needs to light the candles, to call the funeral home & contact his friends.

Someone needs to make flower arrangements & call a church.

& the only someone is me. I put the phone in my back pocket.

Confronting El Cero face-to-face. “Whatever you want from me, forget it. I have nothing to give you.”

It makes me sick that I find out this news here, in this place I love, with a man I am growing to hate.

I rush away from him, but not before I hear him say: “But, Camino, you owe me more than you think, & hasn’t it always been about what I can offer you?”