Lift by Yessica Martinez

In San Pacho, my mother holds my hand.
They shoot a man.

We’re walking from our grocery
“La Familiar” when

a fledgling
baby
bird
of a man

fumbles in flight towards us.

His wing-mouth widens.
He dawns on us.

we pale transparent,
see-through as the air

he launches for and
falls.

At my feet. I’m the one my
mother picks up from the ground.

She shuttered. This story is a
Snapshot from her mind.

When she tells it, as though not to
me, she asks:

“I always wonder if she remembers.”

Watch:

memory, a pebble launched
from the Y of my slingshot.


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