ritual for the amelioration of a bad dream
selling potholders she’d woven,
a little grubby from her grip,
the wear and tear of having offered herself
so often
You bought two, added them to our drawer,
saying, “That could be me.”
My dad earned good money,
but your own mother had filled a drawer
with unopened bills
You’re twenty years gone
and I’m pushing your grandson
in his stroller when a woman on Figueroa
holds out a stack of potholders,
a prayer written in yarn
No tengo dinero, I say,
and it’s true, but a block too late
I realize I could have gotten cash
and found her again. I could have
summoned you
I dream of telling your other grandson
that I’m dying, trying to be honest
while softening the blow, as if
such words could ever be anything
but an earthquake
That could be me: leaving them,
joining you. To lack the audacity
of confidence—in clear bloodwork, a steady
paycheck—is to leave them anyway,
my head perpetually turned
Lo siento, lo siento, I say to her
and you, and your grandsons,
though forgiveness is a wooden nickel.
Lo siento translates to
I feel it
The Jewish prayer books prescribe
a ritual for bad dreams, says my friend
who knows about such things.
Spit three times in four directions,
tell three witnesses
Each says, It will be good.
The group chat says, It will be good.
And over the roar of my own tears
and the tears of the whole world,
bound together with wet yarn,
I can almost hear you say it too
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