if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. i do it because i like it.

1.

She placed the bucket of water

On top of her oil gray black hair

Her sunken bicep swelling

Tightening her crinkling burnt potato chip skin

The yellows, oranges, pinks

Of her wupeel glowing so that I squinted

As she looked pointedly into my eyes

“cuantos anos tienes?” How old are you?

“Tengo veinte cinco anos” 25

“Donde esta su esposo?” Where is your husband?

I blushed. “No tengo un esposo” I don’t have one

Disbelief clouded her tree bark eyes

For just a moment

As if my singleness alone made it clear that I wasn’t ready

Then her sandled feet crunched through the rows of crops

Water sloshing in the bucket

But none spilling over

I glanced at the barbed wire fence containing their property

Her two little barefoot grandchildren

Stood behind it

grabbing the smooth part of the metal

They stared at me

As if I was a photographer

Who came to capture

A new popular image

Of Third World Latin American Living conditions

With their dirt encrusted skin

Protruding bellies and skinny legs

And snotty, sweat-stained hand me down clothes

And not their new mother.

2.

The edges of his ear seal against the door

His eyes pinching half shut with wrinkles at the corners

His lips pressing together and pushing out

While his fingers frantically scavenge his left nostril

She stares at the door frame in front of her

Her hand pulling at the front of her shirt, resting on her belly underneath

Scrunching up her toes, calves, thighs, then releasing

While her unmoving eyes pry the top layer off of the door

His eyes widen, pupils stretching

Crowding out more and more white space

His left hand smearing the contents of his search

On the door frame

While his right hand, palm flat pushes so hard

Against the door, as if the harder he pushes

The more likely it is that the people behind it will make the right decision

Her eyes, watering from her unwavering staring contest

Finally dart down to where her hand sits

Stationary

The other hand grasps at crisp air

Until it finds his hand and pulls it towards where her other hand rests

So he can feel the kick

Right before her parents shuffle out of the room

With swollen red eyes

And heartbroken lips

Forcing out words they’ll always wish

they hadn’t said

3.

They proudly displayed the 10 4x6s nailed to the tree

They took us inside their church with laughter on their lips and flutters in their steps

The little girls with baby brothers on their hips

Dust in their hair and clay shoved under their nails

And they thanked me over and over again for coming

When the cost of the trip was mere pocket change to my parents

But it was the value of everything they had and their homes

A silly little point and shoot camera

Pulled hundreds of toddlers, children, parents

Into a tight huddle around me

Just to glimpse the images I had taken

And blush, giggle, and look away when I pointed it at them

I sat in a chair and they in the dirt

My face freshly scrubbed

While their tears stuck their hair to their faces

But when we stood up

They surrounded each other

While I slid off of my plastic chair

4.

With lips cracked and blistering he sang to her

Gently whispering his lullaby, feather tickling her ear

She felt his lips spreading into a smile

As she cupped his cheek in her burnt calloused palm

A slim tear crawled down the bridge of his nose, trickled over his swollen lips

She knew because it slipped into her ear, rounding into a bead and resting inside

A cough thumped her chest,

Made her whole body tremble,

Cracked her throat

She tried to sit up on the warn woven dull pink and red blanket

The pain and the heat wrapped their fingers around her shoulders and pinned her down

He smoothed her sweaty hair behind her ear and kept on singing

As the wind whipped a breath of hot, needle prickling sand in through the tent door

She was the only one who didn’t need to close her eyes

As they sat blank and dull

staring without watching.

5.

She looked up from her paper and crayons

Her lips pursed, brows cinched in thought

She tapped her “pink paradise” painted toes

From her perch at her plastic alphabet table

Her hand reached to her belly

Scratching the shimmering purple fabric of her princess dress

The jagged bottom of the sheer fabric falling just above her little pink knees

Then her eyes widened and brightened

And she quickly reached her little fingers

Into her shining yellow ringlets

Pulling them into a dancing ponytail

As she took up the orange crayon

And began scribbling again

She was a princess even surrounded by

Children she didn’t know

And parents she couldn’t call her own

Imagine who she could be

With the chance to eat more than canned corn

And Kraft macaroni and cheese

And to go to art classes and take dance lessons

Showing off to a mother, an aunt, a grandmother

Even a friend