[Immigration Headline]

[byline]
la herradura, s.v.—¿Do I have a mother? Have her pinkie in my hand crossing the street? Have her breath on my hair as she sings arru-rru mi niño to sleep. ¿Don’t you mean where? ¿What was your question? I’m older. Think more about memory. It makes me crazy. Obsessed. Her warm breasts on my belly as she knelt to tell me todo va estar bien. I’ll never see her again was the fear as if she’s gone, died, will never come back. I whispered it hidden in banana groves looking at the sky hoping one of those planes would take me to wherever she had left to. Whenever Mom hung the clothes to dry, not a cloud in the sky. I could see her sandals picking up dust. For a second. For a second I believe she’s back. It went like that every day. Every single night. 
I’ll never see her again. But then, I did. Her face. Her hair. She was the same. So much had changed. I do not remember 
what it was I truly felt.
Source: Poetry (June 2019)