Her face is open
expectant shiny
Spanish radio wailing low
laughter and long
songs that sound of desert
summers

Black birthmarks
live beneath her girlish lip

Short and soft she
walks like a rich woman
although her only shoes are black
leather frayed and tired

She smells like cotton
white dresses pungent
wood green flowers and
Mexico but
I’ve never been there

Her daughter once came
to clean and she
was my age
caramel pretty

The girl came into my room
and said nice room
nice room she said
voice warming me and
making me ache for answers

Chicago’s possible and blue like
the lake
and you have friends that understand
the language of
french fries and
bread-smelling hair that
can’t be washed
everyday
you live in an apartment and have air
that understands you
right right right

But I don’t ask just smile
suburban mind clean and trimmed
like the artificial lawns
outside

The cleaning lady calls me
by my name
not sticky like my
teachers but close
like she knows me

And when it’s time to
go she quietly
steps away like
we are crazy
like we are a family of
animals and
I want to tap her used
car and shout
a thousand times
I love you