Esperanza
—Mario Duarte
Esperanza
turned into a chicken—
no longer sad.
When she laid an egg,
I was the hatchling.
When she said “I love you,
watch me fly” she flew.
I never saw her,
again and pops, well,
that old coco, ran off
with another bird.
Abuela said I
looked like her—I liked
her off kilter face
staring at me in photos.
Almost 18, I left
after Abuela’s funeral.
All the flowers there
made me puke. I woke up
in a strange country
working a forklift in
a shampoo factory
where I felt dirty.
One night walking home,
the moon, a burnt orange,
I felt a wing on
my back. I screamed,
turned but there was no
one there, nothing.
In bed, I chewed on the ends
of my long hair,
raven and radiant like
hers was and dreamed
of her pecking out
my eyes leaving
holes in my head, gaps
I am falling through
even now, on a morning
disrupted with endless
light crawling back,
searching for our shadows.
About
MARIO DUARTE is a Mexican American writer who lives in Iowa City. He is an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate. His poems and short stories have appeared in Arkana, Bicoastal Review, Muleskinner Journal, Ocotillo Review and Rigorous, among others. In the past year, he has published a poetry collection, To the Death of the Author and a short story collection, My Father Called Us Monkeys Growing Up Mexican American in the Heartland.