They asked me once

what it was like to have                        no blood connections known

no sadness or loneliness shared

no cousins, no aunties, no mother, no father

to have prayed to the wrong ancestor most of my life

Oh, how people like to assume

                asume lo peor siempre que es mejor, the man who raised me used to say

but he was wrong      they are wrong
*
When the man who raised me died

the tiny bones he had buried in our home garden remained

there was the white Boxer dog who welcomed me back home from school every day

the grey cat always too scared of my childhood games

the unborn sister I named Alice

and, oh, how many secrets we shared

             how many games we played

                                 ugly ducklings

               apple-poisoned princesses

               Thumbelina rescued by a blue bird

Hansel & Gretel trying to find a home              our home

the road marked with empty snail shells

we got lost, but we found it

                                                                            nuestro hogar

Large windows and stone walls

blue carpets and the scent of mould

The white dog rests in its garden

the cat basks in the sun

the ghost of the unborn five-month-old smiles

bones the length of a banana mixed with the remains of childhood dreams

My dreams los sueños de la casa

overseen by the ghost of the elderly woman who called herself my grandmother

She died there in one of those rooms with blue carpets

She didn’t look peaceful, her eyes scared until a gentle hand closed them

Abuela                         chosen ancestor

smoking Marlboro reds from the window of the room where she died

waving to her yerno – the one who died too soon

the one who brought me to her and told her I needed a limpia and

a home                                                    arms to hold me

                                 an abuela to feed me

Did my birth mother ever feed me?

                      [when I meet her ghost … when I meet her ghost]
*
Five lonely ghosts remembered by adopted kin

They travel every year

Así de la tierra de los muertos

y compartimos historias

y el perro blanco me lame las heridas

y el gato se enconde bajo la cama de mi hijo

Abuela and I smoke Marlboros

Alice plays with my daughter’s hair

my father asks for forgiveness

                most secrets are too heavy to be turned into ashes
*
New apartment buildings now cover the bones of an unborn girl and two pets

A man’s and his suegra’s ashes share the space at a church that no one ever visits

Their secrets covered in dust

But who will visit my ashes?

Spread them instead

Take some to my dog and unborn sister but don’t scare the cat

leave some next to papá and abuela

throw the rest to the sea

allí, flotando un mar de ancestros