A Breaking

sometimes the waiting
presses tight against me

like a balloon one breath too full:

to be touched is to shatter

but if yours were the touch,
i’d gladly burst into a thousand

fluttering confetti shapes
in celebration, if only you would
be so gracious as to be
the one who breaks me

Spain in Stanzas

uno. novio.

we will never belong together.

i will give up reese's cups
and brown sugar
to be with you,
i will love you down to the dirt
and cobblestone,
but i will never know
exactly who you are,
you with your chocolate
eyes and tile floors.

i confess to
envy toward the ones
who have known you
before, the ones that will
know you after i'm gone.
spanish breeze kisses
my forehead and whispers
you knew this all along.

dos. niña.

spain existed centuries
before my homeland became
a thought; still i sometimes
want to tuck a blanket around
you, protect you from
everyone who flies in to poke
and prod and photograph you,
even as i do the same.

i want to say the words
all mothers say:
be proud of who you are
(these sweatshirts that say
new york, michigan?),
don't let people put you down
(you're not supposed
to be america),
know your friends
(those madrid postcards they bought
don't mean they'll be back).

tres. amigo.

on the French coast, gracias rolled
right off our tongues as cashiers
handed back our change.
at the airport, we realized that
Spanish sounds like home.

tres. abuelita.

my world, it is the New World,
heavy roots are tugging me back
toward that place

but i remember:
i can count back four generations
to when the Old World was home,
we are not so far away,
our grandmothers
were neighbors

3 Regrets of Varying Length

that visit to the career center
when you said there were no divine
cardboard signs except the one
lodging in my stomach

the phone call i answered with
"i think so" when you asked me
to pick yes or no and i meant
no but said yes

the hill and my hand in his,
choking on promises
like sour berries

Spanish Restaurantes are Actually Time Machines

not forward or backward
but still.

press your way to the
table, toward aceite and vinaigre
and water you'll have to pay for,
café in the world's
smallest cup.

one gazpacho and
a basket of bread later,
your watch will say
it's been two hours
mas o menos
but it only felt like one
jar of tinto de verano
and nobody minds that
you're still sitting here.

the pile of change you
leave atop the cuenta
will reactivate normal
movement of the
clock.

Slow Enough

Spain moves slow
enough for us to notice
the ivy poking out between
cement patches and that
streak of cloud passing
behind the old church tower,
all the momentary magic
that becomes visible
only at walking pace.

I want to walk this world
with you, slow enough
to notice each block
by crumbling block,
long enough to see
the wrinkles quietly
deepening around
the smile of
your eyes.

the width of the ocean

there is not always such depth
washing across me;

sometimes it is the lick of a
tiny wave, a student propelling herself
into my arms for the daily hug.
i am awake to her hair
on my cheek and the ache of it,
a thing i didn't recognize until
a second ago.

sometimes i watch fathers with
their babies, giant hands
touching fragile fingers, those
barely-kisses on top of
a soft head, and then it is a riptide
pulling me under, edges blurred.

that is when i understand
the width of the ocean,
the space between my arms
that suddenly feels so empty.

Inkstone

(Inkstone, n. The literary magazine of my alma mater)

i don't know how i end up
in these places.

ten years ago,
you put the second volume
in my hands, said most
writers are starving,
but the poems still tasted
like dreams (it could
be enough to fill me).

in those days, i slipped warbling
words through the mail slot,
my imagination adding
stanzas about the husband
and kids, cozy house
in the midwest.

i sleep alone in a
peeling-paint rental
in madrid where my
roommate always beats
me to the mailbox.
today: manila envelope,
inkstone inside, i'm flipping
through the bios, noticing
how we always speak
in present tense, never
sure what we'll be
once this issue is
finished.

my story is not chubby
babies and minnesota. i buy
cheap plane tickets and fall asleep
too early. i do not recognize
the names of the writers
in the back pages, all
young and ready
for life or what we
think it will be

(but i have never
forgotten the weight
of a semicolon or the
flavor of hope).