Clap When You Land(28)

asked me if I was allergic to Mami’s cooking.

But besides the busybodies, I’ve loved that the Johnsons never minded my presence, & Dre & I would watch TV after dinner, or play with her mother’s makeup.

But although I love the Johnsons,

I’m not sure I can go back there.

I can’t look at Dr. Johnson with her soft, sad eyes.

Despite the relief I felt before in their home I can’t be in a place that’s gone on as if my father never existed.





Twenty-Five Days After


My cousin Wilson shows up at the house

on Tuesday afternoon

& sits at the kitchen table,

hugs Mami tight, compliments her hair.

She runs a hand through the strands

that I swear she hasn’t washed in four weeks.

Wilson takes a deep breath. Says he wants to marry his girlfriend, how he’s too afraid to ask.

Mami & I look awkwardly at each other, congratulate him. But Wilson shakes his head.

“A campesino like me, what have I got to offer?”

Wilson has lived in New York City since he was ten.

He’s definitely not a campesino anymore.

I don’t know any peasant rocking designer sweatpants & Tom Ford cologne; don’t know any rural Dominican who drinks only expensive whiskey.

But Wilson says the ring he wants to buy his girlfriend is out of his price range.

& I want to know, what’s a bank teller’s price range?

& did his girl care about price range when she got with him?

But Mami simply gets up from the table

& grabs her checkbook.

I turn away as she slides the check on the table, but before I do I see she wrote down four figures.





Cucarachas is what I want to call my mother’s family.

How the last few days

they’ve started creeping up from the woodwork.

These same cousins who called me ugly want to suck up & say how beautiful I’ve grown, how tragic the loss of my father.

The aunts & uncles who said my mom should have married a lighter-skinned man all of a sudden want to tell my mother about this new liposuction procedure they want, or a church mission trip they’ve been meaning to take; a dream wedding they can’t afford,

or hospital bills they haven’t paid.

Since learning about the advance,

someone new visits every day,

& soon my tongue morphs into a broom: “Pa’ fuera, all of you. Leave us alone.

We are not a fucking bank.”





Mami says I’m being rude by turning family away.

I tell her her family is being rude by asking for money.

Mami says this is what family does, helps each other.

I tell her our family should be helping us plan the funeral.

Mami doesn’t say this is a difficult time.

I tell her, Mami, I’m not sure you are thinking straight.

Mami looks away from me & gets up to leave the kitchen.

I ask her what it is she isn’t saying.

Mami stops at the doorway, her back to me.

I brace my arms for impact.

Mami tells me, you always loved him so much.

I nod silently; at least that much is true.

Mami says, even as smart as you are you ignored the signs.

I don’t ask her what she means, but she keeps talking anyway.

Mami tells me, I wish I’d stopped loving Yano a long time ago.

I don’t have to ask if that’s a lie.

Mami tells me, you don’t know how he’s embarrassed me.

I want to cover my ears like a little girl— Mami tells me, & if this death money

will unshame me with my family, so be it.





Camino Yahaira


Twenty-Eight Days After


I have been avoiding the beach for days.

I stretch my arms wide on my bed, & my legs too.

I fan my hair out all around me.

Inside me something has shrunk, but I want to be deserving of all the space around me. Even as I realize this space might not be ours for long.

I think about the electric bill for the generator, the phone bills, the internet bill, the school tuition.

I think about Columbia. I think about New York City.

Tía tells me the funeral will be covered by my father’s wife.

My stomach turns over at the thought: my father’s secret wife.

My father’s secret life. What I’ve wished & worked for: sand running through my fingers.





I do not ask Tía, but am pretty sure, this other girl has my same last name.

Papi was married to her mother, just like mine.

Yahaira is a great name. & I wonder if he picked it.

I could see my father lovingly saying the syllables.

I search the internet for this name.

It means to light, or to shine. & I wonder if she was a bulb in my father’s heart. I wonder if she was so bright he kept returning for her when he could have stayed here with me.

I wonder if she’s known about me her whole life.

I wonder if her light was why he was there when she was born.

I’m the child her father left her for in the summers.

While she is the child my father left me for my entire life.