Outside, in my garden,

there are flowers that close their petals at night

Su centro es azul

like a blueberry or, perhaps,

a tiny blue moon

 

Mija cuts them on Sundays

She gives me one, two, cinco

She skips numbers

mixes languages

yet everything makes sense

 

I wonder what these flowers do in the mornings

when no one’s home

perhaps they play with the ghost of my daughter’s laughter

or scare the neighbour’s nosey cat

 

These flowers hold memories

but I forget

One becomes four

Y el cuatro es silencio

Eight becomes twelve

And then my daughter’s childhood years will become a memory too

Una florecita watching, learning, making friends

I see her grow

 

When I close my eyes at night

I hold on to my memories of her

Pray I don’t forget her babyhood, her childhood smile…

and that squeal

 

My little flower thief asked me last night

‘Mamma, why do we sleep?’

‘To make memories,’ I said.

‘But how?’

‘We draw them in our inner eye, 

el que nunca se cierra, aquí, en medio de tu frente.’