Poem to Hummingbird

Poem to Hummingbird

Poem to Hummingbird 1920 1280 Kenia Romero

“Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion,” Eleven by Sandra Cisneros

You’re sixteen and you’re stuck / in the onion layer of fifteen fourteen thirteen / Look at the dawn creased across your brows / Look at me now / All these sunset emotions / What do I do with them? / Let me tell you something, Hummingbird / The stars fold in on themselves once every two-hundred years / and the last time it happened, my father stole avocados from / my uncle’s garden to gift my mother, father trekked the bowl-rim of / Yextla to the peak East, smiled at my mother and / asked for a second and third serving of crema fresca on his beans / Hummingbird, my father doesn’t like crema fresca but he liked the swish / of my mother’s skirt against her calves in the dim moonlight / of her wood and clay kitchen / Hummingbird, you’ll be seventeen and / sixteen underneath this new onion layer and / I won’t be here to see your dimples every time you smile / For this, I’m thankful and sorry / I’ll forget the flower I stole from a coffee shop / because it reminded me of you and I won’t tell you / I take after my father.

Header photograph © Annika Ruohonen.

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