Abuela (I’m Sorry)
by Slate Reyner
Mother forgot your face but knew the sound of your children’s tears. You had plans to run past the sunset but one day you tripped on language and stopped walking west. Is the sunburst mirror you keep by the staircase a memento of all those worlds (words?) unseen? You were born so one day I could cry in the rain and read botany books upside down. I’m doing my best to do everything the world has on offer. Did you know there is a plant called Love (Lies Bleeding)? Maybe it was in your orchard, the one you’ve only seen three times since 1952. Did you know I once wrote a letter to the man we never knew, the one who died on that unknown patch of grass by those unknown train tracks? He didn’t get to keep the bullet casings.
“Slate” for a blank slate, constant recreation of the self. “Reyner” for the acclaimed architectural critic, Reyner Banham. A pseudonym for an average twenty-two-year-old.