Welcome to my palace, hermosa.

Fernanda stood barefoot in her fuchsia skirt and embroidered huipil.

The wait on the street had felt like an eternity. To stay patient I gazed at her pine wood door. Its grain drew long, wild flames sprinkled with resin pockets, like little amber windows. Fernanda had chosen this particular plank, she had told me, to draw in the light. I tried to peek in, imagining what the other side held.

Flash Frontier 2021

Little Amber Windows, video

So you’re back, they surely said. As if she had been gone for the weekend.

It was hot when Mariana returned. She stood at the Ayotlan airport surrounded by the kiddy guitars; the paper flowers in Mexican pink; the coconut and tamarind candies for tourists to take in the aromas of this far-off land. One o’clock in the afternoon, and in the waiting room stood the sleepwalking workers with no lunch break but yes, a promise of better pay next year. Their gray necks glistened; their shirts stuck to their backs like the drenched sails of a sinking boat. A bit uppity, a bit shy, they smiled at Mariana and she smiled back, airing herself with her lace fan.

It was all so familiar.

Coal Hill Review 2021

To Alex, to her courageous mother

Don’t say a word. Midnight, the quiet hour. Close your eyes, don’t move, breathe. Practice sleeping the way you have all these years. When you hug it, the spheric pillow gives your chest, your arms that sweet pressure.

Solstice Literary Magazine 2019

Mazatlán of Many Rebirths

Arriving was a no brainer. That is, I had no brain left. How can you pack a kayak so lopsided that it turns 45 degrees from the intended direction?

Paddling across the sound should have been easy. I was one with the wind, with my biceps and the current. But the kayak proved a force I did not anticipate, stubbornly turning away from Knight’s island. Under Ella’s patient watch I prevailed—two hours after our ETA. But not without her offering to throw me a line, and me balking at the humiliation of being towed by someone with a kayak heavier than mine.

I prevailed, all sunburnt, my biceps bulging, the alebrijes on my tattoos swimming on my wet skin.

Sinister Wisdom 2019

I held hands with Rosa Chávez Taylor every Friday morning. Sister Ana led my third-grade class across the fi eld stretching between our school and church. Th irty-t hree gal a-unif or med girls i n al phabeticall y or dered pairs bat hed i n s unli ght. I felt bad for Susana Zambrano who, as the last on the line, had to hold hands with Sister Ana, whereas my name paired me with Rosa—freckled, long-haired, kind, articulate Rosa. When the breeze blew my way, I caught whiff s of her clean skin combined with the anise and chamomile growing around us. On hot mornings, our palms sealed together. We chatted softly. For those twenty minutes, she was mine.

Feminine Rising Anthology 2019

Chepo Menard finished the caviar appetizer, chased a few stray eggs on the tablecloth with a moist finger and licked them. A wine stain grew on the linen tablecloth next to his napkin. Adrián Landeros listened to him, his thoughts hidden behind his smile. The breeze entered through the Art Deco windows to caress the organza drapes, the Manila shawl draped over the concert piano: all the chinerías and japonerías embellishing his mansion for two hundred years and counting. Each room is designed to enjoy the sea, to celebrate its roar, its palpitations. As children we ran through his house, rolled down the silken sands of Playa Careyes. In the garden, the topiary trees shaped as dragons, mermaids and seashells invited our storytelling.

The Nereid on the cedar tree told the story of how Karina and I taught the little ones to kiss.

The Poseidon on the ficus told of the first time I drank from Fabián’s mouth.

Solstice Literary Magazine Editors’ Pick, 2018