cognitive decline

I won't tell you about the moment that I was born
   I will, however, say that I have two problems
        my mother wants me to go with her and watch the
        first moon landing
        two, the first moon landing was in 1969
        last week, we went out to get frozen yogurt
        she remembered her usual order, vanilla bean
        with coconut and blueberries, perfectly

she loved playing classical music
   it's a progressive art to the ears
        build to last
        fragile and unforgettable
        she started to forget counting backwards from 10

it's around this time of the year that I find
   myself observing every everyday folk, the
        troubadours, waitresses, dreamers, and artists
        maybe find out the reason why most
        teenagers color their nails black
        maybe pick a conversation
        with my mother whose brain is
        dipped in Alzheimer's disease

I feed, befriend and
   walk hand in hand with her
        delicate trust in me
        we build a friendship under multiple
        first impressions and various frustrations

people are walking by under the wintry weather
   they all love strolls around the central plaza
        we go sometimes, almost all the time around 4:00
        I'm glad she hasn't forgotten that today
        but she called me lady instead of my name
        I have no name
        but we had a good talk
        it's a tough crossroads kind of situation

foreign faction

how blue, how beautiful
how unrecognizable
what a good line for a poem
the sigh that blew me away
blew me forward
it sang about my tired eyelids
it sang clear about what I had done
and have become
I then finally nestled but with fear
that I am but a fiction

at seventeen, somewhere
where the faint smell of my
mother's perfume followed me
I doused myself with
the sounds of reggaeton
that reminded me of the sweet
good old days, back home
at my favorite spot
freedom used to be free
and I had memorized its bone
structure so perfectly

there is a breath that was passed on
to me, it screamed
"tonight is the night"
but it was only
enough for one gasp
this breath won't last


 gasp.

listening to jazz

Every once 

in a while there is 

a nervous looking black child 

an interesting 

one - with no parent that

reads the magazine

or parleys with

another parent

on what one might

consider well meaning 

about fear, 

about careers, 

about

the local 

daycare 

Naturally, I err closer to the child

and I would greet him 

with an awkward first

hand shake or 

maybe a high five 

if I'm 

feeling it

He got a B in science

and he definitely

earned it

man versus gravity

earth, music

ecology

the ocean it does 

nothing 

but it gets the credit for

being breathtaking

Every Wednesday I go up to the hall

I imagine the child sitting

at the corner 

we listen to jazz

ashamed

frightened 

to be

lonely

I craft him paper 

stars 

they shine with 

the radiance of the sun 

only for him

the way nothing else can

I hear the dry sound of 

skin 

against skin

the bigger story arc

that tries to overtake

the secondary

plot 

that drives

both our stories

I tell him, 

"That is what the jazz is for."