Saint Julian Press

Leslie Contreras Schwartz ~ Poet

THE COMAL AND MY HANDS 


​I did not know what to feed you,
What one feeds to a daughter.
 
My hands were empty. I could feel
 
The space from that emptiness, the uselessness
Of my hands from no weight.
 
I pretended I knew how to feed you,
What you needed to eat.
 
I found water, flour. I made them into little mounds,
Shaped them into circles with a rolling pin.
 
I cooked them straight on the comal with my bare hands
Like I had been taught to do. Nothing extra. Nothing
 
Between myself and heat, just water, flour, a rolling pin,
 
The heat and the comal, your own fingers and feeling.
 
You held your hands out. You ate. You held onto my
   leg
In some gratitude I could not grasp. How weak and small
The thing I had to give you.
 
You were thankful, your hands curling
Around my awkward adult leg. I don’t remember leaving
   childhood,
Like I fell asleep and woke up big and grotesque, a
   child’s nightmare.
 
 
But you want nothing from me except what I can give you. You are full. You ate it all.
 
I give you another, and another. I am not pretending. This was not pretending. It was the real thing, the thing that you needed, which I gave you, without knowing I could: a flour mound pressed to your tongue, a little cake where I hid myself without knowing I did.
          Little lump, little pressed finger to the dough, a burn, and some heat.