1945
By Patria Rivera

Mother carried you in her belly
running from enemy fire.

For your birthday, she picked
          a day in the calendar—
                         a day in March—
          in between the rice fields
and the mountains of Pinaglagarian.

She remembers carrying you
               six, seven months....

Didn’t you know there was a war?

Each day she prayed
               you’d be as strong
          as the mountains they’d fled to,
feet rooted on the ground,
          as full of fire as the night flames
               that gave them cover.

On rainy days
she must have foraged
          the rice paddies
               for snails and frogs:
you plucked at the knots of your brain,
          dragged a cloak in your throat,
couldn’t speak ’til you were six,
          had a hard time telling your left foot
               from your right.

          Oh how you loved to sleep in stairwells,
even after falling many times,
          always dreaming of cowboys,
               the gut of ropes and guns,
what the sun holds up close,
          the thump of drums and horses.

© Patria Rivera

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