When you wake up

you’ll find

not quite

what you had in mind:

an angel beside your bed

feet aflame.

Don’t believe

it won’t hurt,

or that you’ll never be forgotten,

in the shadows

of some bleak

mid-winter morn.

Your feet

will take you

where you need to go,

but they will

flinch at broken glass

unto forever.

–Christina Hile

Tomato sauce simmers on the
stove top, my son lies helter-
skelter on the disheveled yellow
couch, his dirty feet dangling, he
plays with a plastic Thor action
figure, the laundry isn’t done
washing yet, rain starts to fall, my
right knee flares up, the cats wrestle
over a torn-up piece of paper they
fished out of the kitchen garbage can.

On the television, a girl with
curly blonde hair sticks
a middle finger down her
throat. She swallowed a
bottle of pills from her
mother’s medicine cabinet
because her boyfriend told her
she was getting fat. Now she’s
trying to throw them up in
a pink toilet in a pink-
walled bathroom with little
pink flamingos prancing across
the shower curtain.

I stand at the stove, listen to
my son make noises of what he
imagines an enchanted
hammer sounds like when it
pulverises a couch-cushion-
mountain range, my head
hurts and I wish, instead, I was
reading a novel in bed, but
I stir, and stir, because this too
leads always to joy.

Cornbread and milk. Flowered
aprons. Baking soda baths for
the chicken pox. Sleeping side by
side on sheets that were hung out to
dry on the clothesline.

Whether you grieve simply or with
great force, you have to wade into
that big piney creek, strewn with oak,
hickory, and wild crocus thick as
fiddlers in hell, on your own two feet.

If you would wake again, you have to
drink from the river where Shadow and
Darkness stand guarding your memories,
spears clenched in their fists, lonesome
for the likes of you.

I have swallowed
a spoonful of soup,
but I can’t tell
what kind.

Daily I swallow
noodles, barley,
potatoes.

If we’re lucky,
there is bread or
even biscuits,
but usually
just soup.

Sometimes I
pretend I’m eating
strawberry ice cream,
tenderloin, a bag
of potato chips.

The curtains
hanging in the
window of Lucile’s
Tea Room dazzle
me, I am attracted
to the millions
of watermelons and
pink lilies.

How often I’ve walked
by them wanting to see what
wonders were taking place
inside, but when I was
brave enough to peer
through the glass,
there was only a
woman in a brown velvet
hat sipping soup from
a heavy spoon.

I had never owned a GTX
590, but I sang you its
praises as I straightened my
discount chain store necktie,
“This card is fast, quiet, and
well put together.”  I knew something
about being well put together, because
almost everything that belonged
to me had fallen apart.

And when I tried to sell
you the “spine-tinglingly
impressive” Teufel speakers, it was
because I remembered being five years
old and going to visit my grandmother,
she smelled like begonias, and I would
sit on her lap while she told me
stories of her homeland,and afterward,
we would listen to Strauss on the record
player with our eyes closed tight.

I knew, without a doubt, the
600 GB VelociRaptor was the perfect
drive for you, because you were so capable
and cutting edge, and it was only five
minutes until closing time, and I
would have done anything to be
your best friend.

Lester, remember to
rub your scalp with apple
cider vinegar, stay away from
the card games, call Bertie on
Sunday, drink a cup
of tea–not whisky–with
your cream biscuits, say your
prayers, take one
horehound drop every
morning and evening, leave
the dowsing rod in the
hall closet, the money from
selling eggs goes in
the bank and not the cigar
box under your side of
the bed, don’t pick on
the neighbor children, wear
something other than that
stained cardigan, read only
under bright light, think of
my return when I will tremble
at the touch of your lips upon
my tired cheek.

You are not something lost, like
a key, my dignity, a phone number
written in pencil on a white
paper napkin.

You are not predictable, like
a moth to flame, not quiet, like the sun
hiding below the horizon, not shrouded,
like a red-brown seed nestled among
the yellow flesh of an Elberta
peach, not vespertine, like
witches’ weeds.

You fret and strum delicate
arpeggios on the hungry side
of town, so close
my lungs fill with your
breath when I sing.

You vanish then, always, I don’t
know how, like a cloak of fog around
a morning swamp willow, like the laughter
of a little girl at play, like the red
seeds of a scarlet runner bean
tumbling from the split pod into
a wooden pail.

You freckle in the sun, I remember
this, and other things: the way your
fingers fidget when you’re nervous,
the red hair you tuck behind your ears,
and how much, no matter who might
miss you, you love to run.

Pantuflas Blancas

Because you are so often alone
I would like to hold hold your hand
in the courtyard of La Casa Azul
to sit with you on the floor of the market
selling tortillas
to cradle your bald head in my hands
after too much tequila

I never loved you for your hair

I would like to bring you home
to Gringolandia
and feed you oysters
and geoduck
to light your cigarettes
while we walk the trails among the waterfalls
to dance in the fountain
wearing Tehuana dresses

Your tiny feet move like doves

–Christina Hile

NOCHE BUENA

In the clash of brick and

Steel I flew through fractured time, a

Brief moment drinking chocolate caliente in

The courtyard, watching a girl with a

Poinsettia in her hair teach a

Red-Headed Amazon to whistle, and then it

Found me again, attached itself to me.

My body: the pinata,

Smashed pieces of clay

You prayed could be

Put back together, fastened and

Fused. These enormous wooden

Beads and these tiny embroidered

Shoes distract the eye, but what

Lies beneath this ruby rebozo is

Still pale and broken.

My skull and this

Photograph are all that

Remain intact.

Someday someone who thinks himself

Clever will say, “This is the day she

Thought about death,” but you will

Know better, sitting in your

Red velvet armchair, legs crossed, you know

This is the day I thought about life, so you

Swallow another shot of tequila and nod.

In the rosy candlelight of this

Last posada, what could be more normal than

This: You stumbling beside my

Bed, bring the needle to my

Arm, hands smelling of

Pork fat and masa, and already I am

Flying in a field of poinsettia,

Flame leaf in my hair.
–Christina Hile