Where we go to be together

This poem was written by Hayley Mojica in a 12-Month Poetry Collection Generator taught by Angel Nafis.

Poetry collection synopsis: Communion is an intimate exploration of self and other. It is an attempt to cohere fragments and minimize the space between things—living or not, human or not. It grants access to the spirit of a human as it metabolizes circumstance, environment, inheritance and memory, ultimately reimagining what the self can be and making a home out of it.

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Where we go to be together

The car always feigns giving out,
holds its breath before digging deep
for the remaining climb—
our home on the hill.
Cement kisses the metal bottom
no matter how slowly we roll the rental in.
  Welcome home, strangers.

If we arrive at night,
we wait any hours to see the forest
and imagine or remember
when it was a field.
To see the damage of our absence,
or all that’s grown in our place.
We wait any hours happily,
knowing they could not compare
to all the other hours we’ve waited.

My great-grandmother’s house materializes
with each look my mother gives
that tender over there patch,
that landing beside her own childhood home.
I hear the wood boards speak
as Mai makes two dinners.
My mouth waters
at the smell of her bacalao.

Deep in the green the coqui sings
beside my grandfather’s machete.
It’s been years, but they still know
to leave room in their song
for the air
and the blade
and the green making love.

My legs dangle from the patio
while I peel the potatoes;
my mom’s already begun
her work on the peas.
My brother wears a single cloth to his seat
on the skateboard.
I worry about his small fingers
pinched under a wheel as he takes the ride down
down down.
I worry about the greedy asphalt
thirsting to drink his skin.

His laughter reaches the house before his body does.
My grandmother smiles at it from the kitchen window.
Ese muchacho, the voice calls,
and we all agree.