Chamaco Imagistic

What were you doing during the panic,
did your grandmother matter to the hot tamales?

Our donkey inspected its veins
postponed by the rope he called rain,

looked in the window where
grandmother stayed awake with the shawl

brought from Mexico
(grandmother crossed the river in her mother’s womb).

She’d blacken green chili peppers on the stove
before she crushed them in the molcajete

to make breakfast for grandfather
whose fingers were stolen by a sawmill

so he struggled to teach me guitar
and the brave syllables of ancient language

which had nothing to do with everyday speech,
and were always in short supply.