Melinda Palacio
Untitled Poem
Melinda Palacio
The day she returns home she
summons all of her imagination.
At least the two palm trees still stand tall,
frame her childhood home in comfort.
She takes in the house on Albany Street,
a duplex turned single home, turned complex as
multiple units crowd skyward.
A gaudy iron-wrought black and gold gate
never was there to fence her in, nor were the window bars,
a tacky prison. She'll never forget her bedroom, the walls that shaped her being,
witness her transformation from girl to woman.
How the wood-framed window facing the neighbor's stucco wall held a death trap for ants,
pill bugs and unspeakable roaches. How she feared those fast brown crunchy bodies,
or a brush of cucaracha's thin antennae ready to tickle and conquer the world.
Today, the neighborhood is quiet, no kids running around,
no moms yelling orders, no fast tires or tricked out engines roaring rude.
Ah, but the outside of the house, the safety of the backyard,
away from the street's stray bullets, was a lush eden she took for granted.
Black and white figs, peaches, and the sweetest tomatoes turned salsa
in her grandmother's molcajete.
Lines of laundry with wooden clothespins where all shapes of shirts, pants, and dresses flapped dry.
Does the concrete jungle miss having a fertile garden that feeds a family of thirteen?
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