Recollections

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Tania Domenzain Vera

Sept 2021

Do you remember the little red apartment?
The one by the highway, where,
on foggy mornings,
as the sun pierced the polluted sky
and crystalized the hallway’s dusty air,
you sat on the staircase waiting for mamá.
Mamá, who’s never been good at keeping time,
but who always packed the flimsy lunchbox
cradled in your lap,
and double-knotted the raspberry ribbon
gripped to your head so that
you could run and play and
make a mess of things without
worrying it would slip away.

Do you remember the yellow house?
The one down Beechmont Trail, where,
on April afternoons
the daffodils crowded eagerly to
greet you with trumpets and fanfare
as you arrived in Darlene’s school bus.
Darlene, who scared you with her
smoker’s voice and eagle eyes,
but who always made you feel
like you were something special,
and double-checked you made it home okay.
You know the house.
The one you lost because
papá was a fool.

Do you remember the garden?
The one up the hill, where you picked
sour strawberries that you never ate,
and found friends among the trusty snails.
Have you forgotten how its concrete borders
groaned and stretched like skyscrapers,
or how the rosebuds bloomed for Tita?
Tita, Herrick’s disciple, whose sharp tongue
left lashes on your weary heart,
but who also taught you how to
wear it on your sleeve.
In her absence, the floripondio withers.
Never again will Shelley’s voice
echo off those concrete walls.
But his words remain, and the garden remains,
and so you linger on.

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Tania Domenzain Vera is from Mexico City, Mexico and studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.