It happened. That first dreaded moment. My toddler, looked at a picture on the fridge, me and my Uncle, smiling, screaming on a downhill glide, rollercoster momento. The Big Dipper. He's dead now. Spent most of his adult life in prison. Meth. A miracle child running from hell, right into oblivion. Even did a Shawshank style escape from a bible belt prison, no less. When he was released, after they found him again, he lived. I mean, lived. Clean. Loved. Got a truck driving career. And was well on his way to becoming the man he could have been. I miss him. Terribly. He was a good man. Scarred, but honest, earnest, strong,with an easy laugh only the hardy survivalist knows. In the photo he has his wide smile, and me two, two sets of matching high Nordic cheekbones, strong faces, colored joyfull. I think that's what real strength is, learning how to feel happiness despite everything. Despite anything. Nothing has power over you, then. My toddler, my little girl, her sweet squared jaw, wide, hazel eyes with the slight Asiatic tilt at the corners, her warm little body in my arms. My life is worth living because she exists. And she wasn't supposed to exist. If I had been more selfish, or less selfish, or smart, I would have kept the abortion appointment. But I couldn't. I thank the Universe for her everyday. Best selfish, dumbest decision I ever made. I wonder if she'll ever resent my decision. I resent my Mother's decision to have me. More for the life of violence, abuse, and povert I had to live through. She had no business having children, a teenage runaway drug addict. Children were a meal ticket. She beat us terribly every day of our lives. My sister and I. We starved. Lived in terror, and sustained crippling effects on our psychis. It's quite an ungrateful thing to think sometimes that you are not grateful for your life. I am glad to be alive. Not a day goes by, no matter how bad or good a day, that I don't find myself laughing. Bella, that's my daughter, is the greatest light. I've never met a happier, more social baby. So smart. Incredibly smart. She looked into that photograph. My dead Uncle and I. All of 15 months. She has started recognizing me in pictures and exclaimes excitedley "Mommy!". This time- she said "Mommy and Daddy!" I laughed, kind of shocked at first. Of course she said that. A lot of her children's books have a Mommy and Daddy. I try to censor it. I say "Mommy" and refer to the other charcter as "A friend". But I can't censor the world. Every TV program, every day care cinversation. Every "Daddy" that swings down and scoops their child up in their arms at parks, in the street, nor should I. It's healthy for her to see male role models, to see living couples, to know there are good men on the planet. My Uncle was one of those. My grandfather too. On my father's side. Nit my Uncle's father. He probably was a good man, my Uncle's father, but I never met him. My Uncle hardly knew him. He died in a car crash when my Uncle was a child. My own father is a child. A good heart, but a child. Funny thing is, as much of an immature deadbeat he was, he's the only one who has stepped up to the plate and made an effort to know this child. Not my mother, my sister, or anyone from her otherside wants to be a part of her life. She has no father. I held her a little tighter. I said "No, honey. That's your great-Uncle. Uncle Chris." She peered into the photograph. I paused. Wondering what to say. "You don't have a Daddy. You have a Mommy." "Mommy?" she said. She seemed to accept that. It quietly breaks my heart. I made the decision to keep her. He didn't. He tried to know her. But she was the result of a weekend between two people who barely knew eachother. An accident. Suprise. Blessing. Will she, one day, hate me For bringing her into this world When her father doesn't care about her existence? I love her more than my own life. I make a thousand sacrifices so she can have everything she needs and wants. I probably spoil her a bit. Our tiny one bedroom apartment is filled from floor to roof with every imaginable developmental toy. Blocks, dress-up clothes, books, paints, crayons, dolls, stuffed animals, cars, you name it. I try my best to make up for what she lacks in family. I take hundreds of pictures, videos. I try my best. Will my love be enough? Maybe, if I'm lucky, she has inherited my strength. The kind of strength that will give her the ability to find happiness, find peace, despite the hardships that are inevitably part of living on this planet, for all beings. May she be happy. May she know joy. May she be loved.

*****all is quiet*****
my life is eclipsed
by light.
God bless the light.

Wonder

Do you wonder
About
The color of her eyes,
Her mouth forming
New Landscapes?
How the sun rises
On her face
For me?

Do you wonder
How choices
You've made
Will sit
Across your chest
On your deathbed?
Do they give
Pressure
Even now?

Can you imagine
The best of yourself?

I can.

Paisano

Dear Cesar,
Pronounced Se•Zah•r

I still think about you every so often.

The child pulled from school in Oaxaca,
To work on the streets of Mexico City
Barefoot

The teenager
Eating hongos from medicene men
Dancing under the moon
Like Mayans

Your scratchy little mustache
And laborer hands

The night you cried
to Jorge Negrete
And dissapeared forever
Into dawn

Did you have a good life?
I hope so.
I can see you.
Someone saw you.

Soil

Blood moon shaking up on the sidewalk

Someone echoing down

Shadow an eclipse

A ghost

Collected dreams

Pushing

Till mold claims us

Surrender open

Failing clouds of

Stubborn mother

Trying

Dry hands

Wet faces

Forgetting

Spoiled erased happy

I

Wish

You

Happiness.