Peggy Robles-Alvarado
Ode To The Necessary Distance Between Us: A Contrapuntal
DISCLAIMER PERFORMED AS INTERNAL
MONOLOGUE BEFORE SHARING POEMS
ABOUT MY MOTHER:
An experiment in giving myself permission
disclaimer.this is a disclaimer.here.i came to declamar.declaim.make claims for and against my mother also known as Mami who doesn’t want me to call her by her name.disclaimer.this i claim.i make claims.i have no physical receipts.i am the receipt.i am the product.i am the proof.i am Mami’s historian.Mami is my mythology.and yes as a poet, i doubt the validity of my memory.i am meta.Mami is the matter.the prey.i am the hunter of Mami’s stories.i too am hunted and haunted by her stories.i am hunter and gatherer of poems.i am keeper of some secrets.i am protecting myself.i am protecting Mami but not at the sake of myself.disclaimer.my work, these poems, my poems, the poems Mami doesn’t wish me to share were intended for bodies.for the bodies of children raised by immigrant mothers.these poems are for children of diaspora of second and third generations who still long for mothering.for mothers.for Mami.i long for Mami in all my poems.disclaimer.this is not a poem.this is an intention being set in this space.disclaimer.vengo a declamar.Mami was, is and will forever be my necessity.here, Mami’s voice will not harm me.here, Mami is loud and muted all at once.here, nothing is broken but di-spirited.here mother wounds are sutured in the telling.the tattle tale.i am tattle teller of Mami.i tell tales and call them poems.here, mother tongues and all evolved versions are welcome.here, mother tongue lashings are soothed.here, Mami listens to what i have to say.here, Mami is vilified and vindicated simultaneously.here, i am free storyteller and family scab healing slowly.here, we, i, mend.here,if you lost your mother, i can help you find her.here if you are lost, i can send a mother to bring you back.here, mother’s have our backs.disclaimer.vengo a declamar.Mami lives across the ocean.disclaimer.Mami doesn’t know
i am reading
poems
about
her.
Duplex With Instructions For My Granddaughter Upon My Return
When I return to starlight and coral reef
I want you to celebrate instead of grieve
Praise dance to drums, smoke the sweetest cigars, but do not grieve
Braid some of my roots into the foot of an old mangrove tree
Leave what remains of my physicality as estuary, lush with mangrove trees
Place all my poems at the mouth of a river leading into the ocean
And when you need me, simply cast seven coins into the nearest ocean
Remember, the sky is sister to the sea and water holds all our memories
Use your voice, ask the tide to distance sadness from our memories
Pull prayer from your throat, surrender your frown and fists
Remember, you can’t properly swim until you release your fists
Soothe the sorrow that threatens to settle in your lungs with saltwater
Your body is mostly water, I will always be close, in bodies of water, in saltwater
When I return to starlight and coral reef
Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Literature, a Latinx Playwrights Circle Fellow, and a three-time International Latino Book Award winner who authored Conversations With My Skin, and Homage To The Warrior Women. Through Robleswrites Productions Inc., she created Lalibreta.online, and The Abuela Stories Project. Peggy’s performances have been featured at Lincoln Center, The Smithsonian Institute, The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and her poetry is highly anthologized. Learn more at robleswrites.com.