Memories of No Consequence

The girl with the letter F tattooed on her cheek. 

A pack of feral dogs gossiping on the beach. 

My mother’s scent after a shift at the factory. 

Annie’s rotten teeth in the second grade. 

The smell of my clothes after we fumigate. 

The injured vulture in Managua and the sounds it made.

Sister Act Two dubbed in Spanish one Sunday afternoon. 

The witch who spit water on my back then struck me with twigs. 

The spirits gathered in threes.

“Do you like the way she porks?” I asked.

Little Orphan Annie flapping in the hot wind. 

The blanket that looked like a lion skin. 

A señora’s perpetual sigh that has no beginning or end.

The family of roaches trapped in a clock.

The way she said, “It burns a little, don’t it?”

My grandpa explaining, in great detail, a panocha.

The neighbor’s perfectly oiled mullet.

The forgotten asparagus and the smell it left us.

The wolf-faced boy buying a paleta.