“Ave Maria” © 2022 by Palloma Barreto
Content warning:
Ave Maria
I dreamt cobbled stone-steps drew me to a meadow with a pagoda. You were playing Ave Maria, bow drawn to the hazy sprout of light on the ground, toes stretched, chest encompassing time and space. Fields of bowed green gripped onto your feather wrist, and each breath was a swirl of wind that threaded my ombré strands and touched my sacrum. Singing, drinking, a squirrel spun deep blue circles over hills and collapsed next to a dandelion. A desire grew from your resolute back, I lifted from earth and called out your name. Your fingers knelt and leapt another octave, you stared at me through the haze, head dipping towards the field. I danced into your warm major chords and velvet vibrato, until I couldn’t separate you from music, and I from you.
the mezzanine
does not welcome you/i.
empty glasses frequent its outer rings,
and eagles, marsupials, eggs
that once lived are packed tightly
in a carpet of underground despair.
I once wrapped a child there for safekeeping,
never mind the express trucks
that take two days to deliver;
I wanted a safer way of living,
a home she could cry and curl into.
They sent me letters from that center,
crows cawing my name, pecking the seeds
nestled in my wrists,
their beaks unthreading scars
that unwrapped and dug,
entrenched in their desire
to flee.
I loved this child in the mezzanine,
but abroad, I loved her more;
at night, the glass steps are silent,
no words from men who leered in subway tunnels
no fathers dragging mothers up its bouncing stairs
no need to apologize, no need to forgive,
to be forgiven.
The last time I saw my child,
she was in a dance over the obsidian steps
in the entrance of the glass desert
her quantum veil hiccupping
before a pair of deep irises,
her slender ankles poised over the edge
when she asked me:
When will you/i be loved?
and i had nothing to say,
no words to respond with,
save a bird that plucked the jewels in my heart
and delivered her the ashes
of my creative fire.