I’m told that’s me on my first birthday,I’m told that’s my grandmother holding me
A moment captured in time—she in her prime,joy upon her life,the baby that belonged to the apple of her eye.
Wrapped in white lace like a cherub angel in the arms of grace,held by a woman who would go on to bebrokenfrom the loss of me—and of a life she prayed, day and night,the rosary,to be more than it ended up to be.
Piñatas lay at my feet, somehow becominga staple at every partyshe threw for me,1,000 miles from my first one
And in my imaginings, I like to believeshe is on the other side of that moment I see,sharing laughs with a whole family,cooing over me—
the angel baby on her hip in the next moment after this,as she wipes the bit of milk that escaped my lips,where she asks the party guests to be quiet a bit,for she just put me down in my very own crib.
Where she was present for more than just the birthof her daughter, who would go on to bethe spitting image of her father who represented hurts and pains and irreversible truths.
It would be three years before she’d returned,shifting this perfect image once captured in time,distorting the precious lightof a grandmother’s eyes—upon a granddaughter whoencapsulated every hope and dreamshe, herself, never knew, she could be.
