The Trouble with Reminiscing
by Sally Familia
I am soft. I dream too:
of tenderness.
The stench of sweat.
Of sunset paintings.
And women in love with bodies they call their own.
I dream of sitting in Helados Bon and trading plastic baseball caps with sticky fingers.
Of a tostada from that colmado next to the hospital I was born in.
I have a haiku in my mind that I never got to write.
I brought it with me.
An ode to plantain fincas.
A recollection.
I think we all feel like this.
Like the stars appear closer when life seems to be falling apart.
Like snow angels only fix heartache temporarily.
It could happen. I’ve seen a grown man rise up from the snowy driveway with a beaming smile on his face.
So I believe the tales that I tell myself.
At least the ones that reinvent the history that altered generations.
So I won’t forget you,
the origin of stories, the roots pressed below my feet, the softness of my land.
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