Abuelita
Para mi abuelita, Amalia Guzman
My abuelita is visiting from México.
When the sun goes down and it starts
To get dark out, she always says,
“Esta oscuro como la boca de un lobo.”
Dark like a wolf’s mouth. She is getting
Older now, 89 years-old. She can’t
Really cook for herself anymore. I try to
Help as much as I can. She’s the best.
Yesterday, my brother asked her where
She was born: Guanajuato or Michoacán?
She said Michoacán. She said the last time
She went to the rancho where she was born
Was a couple of years ago, but she didn’t have
A good time because it rained and rained.
I think, maybe they are tears from the sky.
Tears or rain of celebration for her return.
But, I wouldn’t say such a sentimental thing to her face,
Because she’s been hardened by life as an orphan,
Then getting married and my abuelo dies in his forties;
Having to raise eleven kids on her own. No, I don’t say anything,
But I picture her at her childhood home, sitting on the porch,
Watching the rainfall, wishing her comadres would come by,
Most of them dead now, then one of them would say,
Hola, ¿Como estas, Doña Amalia? Tantos años han pasado.
The Skeleton and the Rose
A skeleton smelled a red rose in a public garden. It was late summer. He listened to Childish Gambino on his cell phone as he sat in the garden. The skeleton began to draw with the rose, because it was also a pen. The skeleton drew a knight slaying a dragon at sunset on a Southern California coast. When the skeleton finished the drawing, he gave it to a lady skeleton who was sitting by a fountain of Koi fish. The lady skeleton received the drawing and graciously thanked him. It began to rain. The skeleton waved the rose in the air, and it turned into an umbrella. The umbrella also had an illustration of a knight slaying a dragon. The skeleton carefully covered the lady skeleton with the umbrella, and they walked to a coffee shop.
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Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Crazyhorse, The Georgia Review, LitHub, The Los Angeles Times, Poetry, Witness, The Southern Review, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He lives in Southeast Los Angeles County where he is an editor and educator.