Receiving Mother at Airport

The second thing my mother did when we met
was tell me that my t-shirt looked unclean and unironed,
that I should clean my clothes myself --
I couldn't stop smiling;
We would spend ten minutes in the cab talking about my face,
how a new weather has dented my face with unsightly holes,
She measured me like a stone-mason reviewing damage,
she always seemed to know what I should look like
as if she carried a photo-album inside her purse
and was in the habit of obsessively checking it,
My mother isn't fond of her smartphone yet.
Oddly enough, her litanies make me feel better,
which is weird because it was always me falling short
but that is better than falling without direction,
better to have her definition to rebel against 
than to grasp at meaninglessness every time I start sleeping,
When I returned from the market I knocked on the door,
After months I knew what is to wait for someone inside,
after months I did not spent a minute opening my lock,
and I realized that I'd much rather be impatient
than know that nobody is home,
The first thing my mother did when we met
was hug me tight enough
to compensate for forgetting love,
tight enough to know 
I would sleep without nightmares tonight.

Selfishness

 There is something immensely selfish

about loving someone that doesn't exist
except inside me as a humming prophecy,
a song my fingers do not know yet,
but I have strum the strings for long,
I want to breathe life into these dreams,
fill them with my lessons and repairs
until the laughter in my house is innocence,
Innocence that falls and breaks in chips,
Innocence that reminds me of wonder
and invites me to intervene but I will not,
because she must know discovery,
know falling to run with lighter feet,
learn that grief can be the weight of wings,
I will teach him to see himself with my eyes
when mirrors show the lies others repeat,
I will teach her to argue with herself
until what remains is indomitable,
and then I shall call her a diamond.
See, I learnt to dance with strangers
until I had lost thousands in the crowd
but my children will know how to find stars,
pin them to their hearts without burning,
She will know the charm within desert dunes,
and weather them like motes of sand,
He will know my summer-dream hide-outs,
those found when winters were meaner,
thus he will remember my nightmares with fondness
and tie long, satin ribbons to the gates I unlocked.

Sometimes I worry that I stock paint
but will never have the time to fill colors,
small fingers will close on large ones
until they are too large to fit inbetween
but I do not mind the winds in my chest
passing through foreign treetops,
to sing different songs to cliffsides,
I will bequeath the poems I wrote inside caves,
and when they sail to make new mistakes
my lodestones will point to the North Star
Their nights will coax their sweet fruit
into wines I will never drink, never taste,
and I will be the artist that left the world
work that changes with eyes and names.

Image Source: Dorian Florez