There is so much of it, the rain,
Too much for this coyote girl,
And from the rain grows flowers
Odd to their curious mother.
One flower in the frequent rains
Rises from la madre purisima de jovenita,
Wondering where it will stop,
She shops the Miracle Mile.
Too fast for her,
She is on the heels of sheared stones,
Like her mother’s unbarred door under the witholding moon
There are forces like rivers, pushing Josefina apart.
A barefoot steamy summer night,
After a shattering rain,
Comes a flower
Slender,
Sudden
Stunted,
It tilts,
And,
Learns to wear coats of her mother’s choosing.
This flower, Teresa,
Sees the sun through the clouds and strains to its side.
Having nursed on the shade and rain,
She is forever escaping la madre purisima de jovenita.
This lily,
Once having seen the sun,
Forever seeks its loosening warmth.
Straining so hard,
Her swollen sallow eyes,
Have seen shards of light,
Under the enveloping leaves of la madre purisima de jovenita.
Teresa is short for her own pure breath,
Unable to show the cowering leaves,
Why she aches for what another has haled.
She wants to swallow something not of her own making,
And each night until the searching sun hears her arguments,
She folds in upon herself.
Until then she dances in her seat,
In a room where her father lived and
She, playing stupid games with stupid dolls,
Remains soaked in the half light of her mother.
It is another night,
And the rain has returned to the magnolia out the window,
Where the lizards live free.