as she flattens our church clothes on the bed.
The iron vapors its own praise toward heaven.
Estrella & I joke about our naked bodies
while we wait to be beautiful enough to matter.
We walk away slowly
to brush our teeth & whisper fight
over who’s going to tell Mami
we ran out of toothpaste.
Tomorrow is Mami’s face-to-face appointment
with the welfare office
& she needs her teeth clean as a lie.
BACK AT THE WELFARE OFFICE
Any other day no matter how tired I am
Mami reminds me that my legs work
fine, but today we are taking the bus.
If we late, we have to come back
another day and that’s a waste
of a token that we could have exchanged
at the bodega for cash.
Mami smiles at every person
who looks important, like she is trying
to convince them she is no trouble.
I hope we get the Latina.
Mami thinks having a Latina caseworker
automatically works in her favor.
If we don’t get a Latina, Mami will pretend
she doesn’t understand English.
Sometimes this works
& we get assigned a Latina.
But other times I end up having to translate
about how poor and fatherless we are.
On the welfare line, my feet blister
& weep onto the floor.
Estrella & I are bored so we run
around the zigzag of slouched bodies
dripping with sweat and hope.
Mami has already used her voice
too many times today to waste it
on anything other than prayer,
but her angry whisper is sometimes enough
of a clamor to make us freeze
like statues deserving of worship.
TALK PROPER
Mami is hype they assigned her somebody
with a Spanish last name
who then starts to talk
to Mami in English.
She gives us questions
to ask Mami
& I guess we ain’t translating them
the right way
’cuz the caseworker tells us we should practice
speaking proper so we can get good jobs.
So people take us seriously.
Speaking proper will get us places.
Like working at the welfare office
helping our own people, like she is.
She was once just like us.
Now she is somebody.
Speaking proper will help us belong
somewhere that has never made us feel welcome
even with our mouths closed.
HOW WE TALK
Estrella & I
are so alive,
our mouths
throw their own house party.
It’s why we can’t stay still
when we talk.
This isn’t body language.
It’s how we get free.
HOW MAMI TALKS TO PEOPLE WITH POWER
Mami speaks
differently to
the case
worker.
Softer—a voice
commonly used
around dead things.
Like a woman
attending her own
funeral.
GOOD JOBS
We should have seen it coming
with how quiet Mami got after the caseworker
let out a frustrated Shhhh as Estrella & me joked.
Mami raises her hand in the air like praise
and swings it down on us like a rebuke.
Estrella & I are so stunned that we don’t even cry.
Mami never hits us in public.
The caseworker says she is a mandated reporter
& has to call the Bureau of Child Welfare Services.
Mami asks if BCW is gonna
take us away and I don’t know if she wants the answer
to be yes or no. Sometimes I think she wishes
we were never born, but if we were never born
what would she do with all of her anger?
There are rules about hitting your kids in public.
It’s not polite to make other people witness that shit too.
There are bathrooms and such she could have taken us to.
But now Mami put the caseworker
in an uncomfortable position.
She can lose her job if she doesn’t report it.
The caseworker says:
It’s not personal you know?
She just has a job to do.
BCW FROM A TO Z
And so just that fast
Bureau of
Child Welfare Services came to the apartment today
Dressed like undercover cops
Except they smiled and were so kind we almost
Forgot they were here to take us away but we ain’t
Going nowhere ’cause we know what to say and how to say
Hello in a way that feels
Inviting like we don’t got nothing to hide
Just in case they think they
Know how love works in this house
Love is a word we don’t say to each other
Mami don’t feel like she needs to say that
No one feels like they need to say that
Out loud anyway & for a while no one says anything at all
Probably because everyone is waiting for a
Question
Really everyone is measuring the
Silence in the way we measure
Time as in how long do we have
Until someone stops smiling and starts being
Vicious and then it happens Mami signs by the X
With her own
X which gives the nice people permission as in
Yes go right ahead and ask Estrella & me to un-
Zip to check for bruises
but all they manage to find are the spots that make us laugh.
NEW WORDS/ADDICTION/
THE REPEATED INVOLVEMENT WITH A SUBSTANCE OR ACTIVITY DESPITE THE SUBSTANTIAL HARM IT NOW CAUSES
Mami’s been real calm since the BCW visit.
They closed the case since Estrella & I
didn’t rat her out & it looks like our faith
in Mami has worked out.
Estrella & I haven’t been punished
in weeks.
Tonight during prayer service
Mami clawed her hands toward heaven
like she was tryna scratch through a portal
or like she was offering up her demons in exchange
for children who weren’t so hungry all the time.
The Holy Spirit pulled her body across the floor
to join a cemetery of sinners on the blood-fuzz carpet.
All these bodies, dying to live again.
I understand how you can become addicted to small deaths
like the ones the Holy Spirit gifts you.
For a few minutes
you don’t have to be responsible
for misusing your hands
on your children.
For a few minutes
all you have to hold is the floor.
BELL ATLANTIC IS BRINGING US TOGETHER
Mami’s mother is Bori Wela.
She lives in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
Mami talks to Bori Wela every day now
that Bell Atlantic has a program
that helps people on welfare get a landline.
She hands me the phone & commands:
Ven, dile hello.
I’m not excited to talk to a woman I have never met
in a language I struggle with.
Unlike with Brooklyn Wela,
when Bori Wela talks to me in Spanish,
I answer in English.
This way whenever we don’t understand
each other
we both hum
& let the silence
fill us with wonder.
SILENT TREATMENT
Mami talks to Bori Wela the way she wishes I spoke to her.
Honestly & in Spanish. Mami and Bori Wela talk every day.
Sometimes Mami is so mad at me or life or something
that she doesn’t talk to me at all,
but she still makes me talk to Bori Wela.
She thinks it’s extra punishment
to have Bori Wela yell at me
for not helping out around the house
or causing Mami stress by existing.
I kinda look forward to how Bori Wela
breaks the silence between us.
Even if Mami goes back to a quiet anger, for a moment
she has to call my name
and I have to respond.
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS
There is a commercial
that is supposed to stop me
from wanting to do drugs.
It involves a girl smashing
an egg with a frying pan.
Or a man frying an egg
to symbolize what our brains
look like when they are high.
The egg sizzles & pops.
We ran out of eggs two weeks ago.
I wonder what the brain
looks like when it’s hungry.
HOW WE GOT OUR NAMES
CRACKING UP
Estrella & my favorite thing
to do is laugh together.
We laugh at everything.
Even shit that we not supposed to laugh at.
Like at dopeheads, any dopehead
who leans all the way over,
almost touching their toes
and never falling down.
We know it’s not right to laugh
at someone else’s addiction
but everybody is addicted to something
and laughing is our own habit to kick.
We crack up because everybody else
is tryna crack down. Crack down on drugs,
crack down on guns, crack down on graffiti
& all we can do is laugh and laugh until
our mouth becomes a weapon
that shoots joy into the air
hoping it lands on someone
on the way back down.
FALL DOWN SEVEN TIMES
In church on Sunday, the pastor prays for me.
He leans his palm heavy against my forehead.
I push forward but he yells
¡Fuera! so loud I jumped back
and suddenly my body is flying
backward toward the ground.
Later, Mami says I fell ’cuz the demons left
my body and made me lighter.
Estrella says I fell ’cause they multiplied
and made me heavier.
An hermana throws a blanket over my legs
to keep my dignity intact or to keep the men from sinning.
Every time someone faints the people praise louder.
It’s a celebration to fall down and get back up.
I can hear and feel everything
but I keep my eyes closed
because I want my own small death.
I want to dream & wake up to a new reality
where even our demons are worthy of a loving God.
Where even they get to have a home
they don’t have to leave.
GET UP EIGHT
Today I made a promise
never to laugh
at a leaning dopehead.
I know the strength
it takes to balance
all of your demons like that.
REHEARSAL
The man who plays the piano looks at me sometimes.
& I know that look.
It’s the same look most men have when they look at me.
They want me to know that I am beautiful
as if only their acknowledgment can make it true.
Piano Man grazes my hand at drum lessons.
He touches me
as if I were a musical instrument too.
MY BODY
I didn’t even start noticing my body
until the men did. Estrella says I’m lucky
’cuz men only notice the pretty girls.
If I was ugly I would be ignored
so I practice being ugly.
I borrow Mami’s loose ugly, flowery skirts
but the men buzz around me and my ugly flowery skirt
like they tryna pollinate me or something.
TAG
After church Estrella and I act like kids
in the church parking lot.
There’s a girl in church named Nini
I wouldn’t have noticed her
if I didn’t understand how loud silence can be.
So I invite her to play tag with Estrella & me.
She accepts & we stash our too big for this game
bodies in between the parked cars and dodge
sudden death by way of the moving church van.
Hermana Santiago rolls down the van window
and screams at Nini to get in the van.
She yells that Mami should discipline us more.
It’s in the Bible!
I can tell Mami is pissed off
by the way her eyes string themselves together
like she does when she’s reading the Bible
with no glasses.
She burns her eyes through us
like she’s trying to start a fire.
At home, Mami beats us like she hopes Hermana
Santiago can feel it.
Thank God for tag.
Estrella & I run from Mami
who is currently it.
THE MAGIC CHURCH BUS
On the nights Mami is in a good mood,
she lets the church van drive us home.
In the church van, people are allowed to laugh,
wonder and ask questions about each other’s families
or gossip about whoever
didn’t make it to church that day.
Mami brags about Raffy and how close she is
to getting him to convert.
A new soul for Christ is another
diamond on the crown Hermana Santiago reminds us.
The bochinche on the bus is always a good reminder
that Christians are human too.
In the church van, the adults
enjoy their humanity
more than they enjoy their God.
& I enjoy sitting next to Church Boy,
the bus driver’s son.
THEY HAVE CABLE
Today we are visiting Nini from church.
Mami is trying to befriend Nini’s mom,
Hermana Santiago,
I guess to prove to her she’s not a bad mother after all.
I’m happy Mami finally has a sort-of friend
because it makes her normal like other moms
who have company over
and make
fun of their kids
while drinking Pilón and eating galletitas
from the big green can.
Mami says that friends are like a dollar in your pocket.
I don’t know if this means friendships are cheap
or that she’s broke,
but today Mami must have a dollar.
Nini lives up the block from us
in a three-bedroom apartment
with Hermana Santiago and five of her siblings.
She’s the only girl.
The boys are cursing and jumping off the couches
onto a yellow foam mattress when we arrive.
Nini yells at them to stop being such stupid idiots
before she slaps them.
They dare her to. Nini’s mom flings her chancla
across the room as a warning.
Nini catches the warning across her cheek and cries
like she wants someone to hear her.
Mami says maybe we came at a bad time
and that we should go but they have food and cable,
so I walk over to Nini and give her a hug,
which is the only thing that’s missing.
FOR ALL HAVE SINNED AND COME SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD
This is the Bible verse Hermana Santiago quotes
when I confess how guilty I felt
for laughing at the crackheads.
It’s God’s way of saying everyone makes mistakes,
she explains.
Is doing drugs a mistake?
Hermana Santiago says it is.
But what about the people who sell drugs?
Whose mistake is bigger?
Hermana Santiago gets real quiet
like she’s listening for God to give her an answer.
Suddenly, she starts wilding out
and tells me that we are in no position to judge anyone,
user or dealer. It would do us real good
to look in the mirror
and see where we have fallen short
before we try to tower over anyone else
with our righteous attitudes.
I don’t know who she’s talking to