Back Home; Visitor Status
March. Plans, plane tickets, grins. I arrive to find my Helios daffodils fighting icy straightjackets which
end up cowering to
April showers and dog pee and spilled iced lattes that knew they’d come too soon because
May arrives and the Fahrenheits drop again. It’s a good thing not many people believe
in climate change and I don;t have to feel openly guilty over the fact that I’m already
thinking of another plane ride. You see,
June is almost here and I, the citizen unclaimed, have to monitor my days in case I forget
that my welcome is not really a welcome but a trick to see if I fit the mold they’ve made
for me – still unknowing me – and abuse my stay. It’s
July. Denial, street market nectarines and alcohol – lots of alcohol – but I go dry in
August because it’s just too hot and I’ll be damned if I die in the summertime when there are
no pumpkins or chrysanthemums or brittle foliage to decorate my grave. My mood’s gone dark.
I can tell it’s
September and I have to leave home again. Plane tickets; goodbyes; salty airline pretzels that I reject;
fingers counting the days spent in case I’ve gotten them wrong, in case I can turn around
and stay. But I haven’t.
I descend.
In my mind New York’s gone dark and barren; and nectarines and lattes are never seen again.
And it calls out for me as a Demeter twisting in sorrow, failing to understand. And in my winter
sleep I think I hear her but it fades. It all fades.
Virginia Grís (often credited as Virginia Sánchez Navarro) is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist with a background in poetry, theatre, and film. Grís’ film work has been part of the lineup at several international venues such as the Austin Film Festival, Cinequest, Chelsea Film Festival, Festival Mix Mexico, and the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. Her poetry has been accepted for publication in Women’s Studies Quarterly, Promethean, The Marbled Sigh, and in several Hispanic publications. She is currently completing the Creative Writing MFA at The City College of New York.
The Marbled Sigh 