Member Poem

I am the sparkle-filled sequence of something
long torn apart, dissection
left to rest, not to reconcile
what is lost with what is left,
craters shine
where culture should be—

How can I possess your lost skin, abuela,
ink language
on outermost cavities,
Calavera
with Our Lady of Guadalupe
firmly to each
thigh...

Syllables linger like sand—appear in floor-cracks
by washing machine,
stick in trunk-fabric of car,
mue-, crá-, escar-

I can’t reach deeply enough into these porous fields
to retrieve, examine collage
of peach speckles, black shark’s tooth,
foreign fragments.

Syllables linger like Spanish moss
on tallest limbs of Family Tree.