There is so much of it, the rain
Too much for this coyote girl
And from the rain grow 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, spreading la josefina
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, la Teresita,
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 spreading warmth.
Her swollen sallow eyes,
Have seen slivers 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 closes like a midnight shade.
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
While shame dances in the front room
It is another night
The rain has returned to the magnolia window
To run down the coconut like rain down her face
And there the lizards come and go.
