Eleven Spells for Home, and: Splinter

Abstract

Eleven Spells for Home, and: Splinter Angela Narciso Torres (bio) Eleven Spells for Home A jar of forgot-ten olives brings back old rooms,smoke of burning leaves. Bitter flesh, the sting of brine,time-softened pimiento hearts. * Once I was queen ofa backyard. Stones, dragonflies,pink earthworms knew me by voice. Now the grass has goneto seed. The house, its tribe—gone. * Rain reveals a stringof pearls. The spider's wet orbknotted with droplets. The fog begs to remember.Chimes predict westerly winds. * [End Page 120] A clairvoyant saysI am fire, my mother—water. Growing up engulfed by her flames, I learnedto be a river. That changed. * The hawk migrates tothe farthest radio tower.Now he swoops, swerving like my brother's paper planes.A slight shiver in the brush. * Mother practiced onbanana trees, stabbed the palestalks with her syringe. Never missed a vein. The nursewhispers, "Your mom is with us." * Milk-blue fog insists,is undramatic and calmlike a living room I once knew. One learns to movewith smoke, shadow, this gray weight. * [End Page 121] Patent shoes scuffingmarble, I skip to the font,dip two fingertips then touch my father's cool hand.He makes the sign of the cross. * Brown leaves on flagstone.The wind gathers my stutteredwords. A few escape. Potted, the ferns remain mute,content. A quiet green joy. * Dawn brought my sister'sguitar, mourning doves cooing.The clang of dishes. Ambulance wail. My mother'slaughter. A chair scrapes the floor. * The weather channelpredicts more sun. Last week's mists,a blankness lifted. When a monarch flutters nearthey say the dead are waving. [End Page 122] Splinter Sweeping leaves,a sliver of broom-handleslips into my palm,silver like the pineof her coffin, she who promisedwhen something foreignenters the homeof your body, bloodwill sweep it out. Give it time, she said.This infinitesimal thornnot of my fleshbut the pain,that is mine. [End Page 123] Angela Narciso Torres Angela Narciso Torres is the author of What Happens Is Neither (Four Way Books), To the Bone (Sundress Publications), and Blood Orange (Willow Books). Recent work appears in POETRY, TriQuarterly, and Poetry Northwest. A graduate of Warren Wilson mfa Program and the reviews editor for RHINO, Torres has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Ragdale Foundation. She lives in San Diego. Copyright © 2022 University of Nebraska Press