translated from the Spanish by Francisco Aragón
 

I learned
Spanish
from my grandma

mijito
don’t cry
she’d tell me

on the mornings
my parents
would leave

to work
at the fish
canneries

my grandma
would chat
with chairs

sing them
old
songs

dance
waltzes with them
in the kitchen

when she’d say
niño barrigón
she’d laugh

with my grandma
I learned
to count clouds

to recognize
mint leaves
in flowerpots

my grandma
wore moons
on her dress

Mexico’s mountains
deserts
ocean

in her eyes
I’d see them
in her braids

I’d touch them
in her voice
smell them

one day
I was told:
she went far away

but still
I feel her
with me

whispering
in my ear:
mijito

Francisco X. Alarcón, “In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles” from From the Other Side of Night/del otro lado de la noche: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Francisco X. Alarcón. Used by permission of The University of Arizona Press.