Erica Maria Litz

de límon.

Heated with water and honey,
the rind remains--its oils
calm
the cough into quiet
sleep
where a man hums
lullabies,
holds a child in a tender dance,
cradles her above the kitchen floor
in his arms--a slow tide
she rides to the shore of ease,
free of the hagridden night.


Birthright

Mother, you turn mirrors during storms. You fear
the reflections, the call-down of a strike.

Eyes that have seen
something they never should have--
lightning, a swell passing over us.
I face history in your eyes, Mother.
At seventeen, I saw my birth certificate.
I wasn't recorded with the name you gave me.
Angry in a changing ignorance, I threw "why" like knives.
You caught them in your teeth, you explained:

Your middle name, Maria,
is all yours, your grandmother's legacy.
I had let yours go,
just on paper--Marie.
I thought---we had to
be in English.

I took our name back, Mama,
when I married, legally claimed what you call me,
what you have always called me,
who you have always been-
Mother in a Storm of Lightning.

Agua Panela

I.
Caliente, it's hot
water and sex.
Sugar, raw,
melted in a steel hand-bowl.

A whole block is broken.
The small, unequal pieces
are dropped through steam,
are dissolved.

What's seen is true:
a daughter learning
she has to light
the stove.

II.
A child's a truth-teller:
Papito, yesterday
me and Mami
went to the blue house again.

She was left. One ought not leave a child
playing in the center garden of the local house for lovers.

The walls and windows of every room exposed,
whether open or closed, a child
knows without knowing: courtyard--
the word for what remains of hard-memory.

III.
She adds cinnamon
so medicine for children
can taste as it should.

Like rice pudding,
a woman could forgive
her honesty as a child,
wrap herself in hand-woven wool
dyed orange, pink,
could sip something warm to relax
her heart muscle.