Natalia Bosques Chico, “Recuerdos Pequeñitos”
“if nobody sees you, are you still there?”
- Akwaeke Emezi
I. my mother is circling her garden with wolf piss. she sprays the umber liquid along the perimeter, back doubled over in midsummer
heat. deer have chomped and chowed through her seedlings, mint leaves and echinacea gone to rabbits.
my mother a war general. i, the war. my father pays for the wolf piss.
II. trailing my medical debt, i arrive at my mother’s front door. please, i ask, can i borrow a towel? hardened by her ravaged garden, my
mother shakes her head, pronounces the word no.
click turn thud of bolt into lock jamb.
Ill. my little brother makes me a birthday card. decorates my name with colors and candles. carefully, he spells out my address, ribbons
the numbers in wet red ink. for postage, he hands the letter to my mother. oh! she cries, ripping the envelope into tiny pieces, there is
no emet! shreds of birthday card confetti the carpet.
IV. warble and rinse the moon through my sheets. the country of my family disappears me. i plant handfuls of seeds, surprised when
they sprout. green shoots and petaled leaves. reach out my hands to harvest the herbs and find that they speak: cells cannot protect
themselves and grow at the same time.
V. stir basil into beans and thyme into soup. did you get my gift? asks my mother through the phone. turn to my kitchen table, where
neon pink socks flop like a fish in plastic wrapping. G-I-R-L printed across them in bold. thank you, i tell her, thank you so much.
emet ezell is a community organizer, public song leader, and poet. They are the author of the chapbook BETWEEN EVERY BIRD, OUR BONES (Newfound 2022), which was selected by Chen Chen for the 2021 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize. Their writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from Mizna, Waxwing, Muzzle Magazine, Southern Humanities Review, PM Press, and elsewhere. Rooted in diaspora, emet makes home between Berlin and the US South. When they reincarnate, they hope to become a bird.