I braid dirt roads into my hair
while her eyes linger on
the fence. Our heels resting
on the edge of the riverbed,
“Aqui no hay dolor, mija.”
We watch as white doves float
into the blurry heat, their
gnarled
bodies silently fading into light

They never come back again.

Until the stained glass fractures
across my throat, I won’t breathe.
Oh Dios, I won’t breathe. I watch
as my nails get blacker by the day.
She showed me how to peel fruit
correctly, so I take all of them
one skin at a time, vein by vein,
a resurrection.

It’s like this—home is where
you are when your eyes are
closed. The nights here are lurid;
guns force a song into our
throats.
It wants blood: it wants sinew
and white-toed communion.
There is no release until
the morning shivers out from
underneath the stars. Once,
I offered our husks to the alley
dogs and watched as they
swallowed them whole: we are
no longer prophets. My home
is here, this throat of a sky.
And hers is a garland of agave
flowers, eternally blooming,
coiled under her nail beds.

About The Author

Casandra Robledo is a sophomore pre-nursing student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. When she is not writing poetry, she volunteers for a number of student organizations on campus. She has an avid interest in photography, and she likes her coffee with extra sugar. Her work has been published in the Red Shoes Review and the 2015 issue of Brainchild.

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Barrio

About The Author