Poem--Celina Martinez

Seis Seis Cinco Harvard

Outside. Playing outside. The duplex on
Harvard where we lived. The front yard, other
kids weren’t there. I should’ve been inside. It
was time to eat but I didn’t want to
go in. A car parks at the curb, a blonde
woman appears, walking toward me, “come
here” she says. I barely understand her
but I know she wants to take me away,
“Come here, “ she repeats, pointing to the car
on my street. I don’t know her, but maybe,
she must be a teacher from school. She walks
to where I am and something quick happens
inside my skin that tells me that I won’t
see Harvard street again, never repeat
what my mother said in case I get lost.
The street doesn’t hear me. Cambodians
next door squat on the floor, their doors open,
as night’s falling, echoes of TV’s blare
the same channel, the same voice of a man
telling the news in Spanish. The woman
doesn’t look like one of those strangers my
mother says not to talk to, one of those
monsters that appear out of her mouth: if
you’re bad, someone will come get you, she says.
The woman wears a skirt and pantyhose.
There are circles of sweat like mouths open
under her arms. I back away till I’m
pressed against the concrete block of porch.
The woman takes my arm and pulls, fingers
digging. I’m cold. I pull away and run
toward the backhouse where the naked
Nemí, always guarding the door, stands
in diapers and my mother says, “No shame,”
because being naked is bad. I hear
bullfights and specials on dining room sets,
Matador Carabello’s commercial
repeats from the sky over my house
and other houses on the block, louder
than the man who tells the news. I try not
to hear the woman’s high heels click behind
me, crazy and hard like the beating
inside my chest. I run to the trashcans
on the side of Nemí’s porch and pick up
one of the lids and put it up like I
will hit her. But I can’t reach to her blouse
which is the color of cream my mother
puts on her face. A shadow shifts over
us. Matador Carabello says he
has good prices. My father took me to
his store and Matador wasn’t there,
only a big cardboard of him, with his
hat and belly and bullfighter suit.
I back into the trashcans, still holding
the lid. Metal and cement make a sound
like scraping. At nighttime they make no noise.