pickled light flickers on the doormat
my grandmother soured in dust

no one comes to see her leg
lost to infomercials

a web of blue roots animates
her hand with figures she draws in waves

the window opens to barking far off
are you there? she asks

her voice a rigor of words filling her eyes
the dog leaps off a hollow log

my womb, careful she giggles as I flip her like a pillow
the treacle dusk liquefies on the saucer a dying shore

I dip my finger in the sugar wand wafting in and out
here taste spit from the bottomed-out sea

she puckers her lips then gulps
the hiss of foam drowning

Alegria Imperial