At sunrise, nightmares vanish,
replaced by Bernarda’s fearsome stories
about my mother’s brothers—Ignacio,
who was shot in a duel, and Antonio, dragged
behind a horse during a revolution.
Apparently, my family’s history
was always riddled by tragedies.
Mamá married Manuel and divorced him
before I was born, because of his drunkenness,
but then he married one of my aunts, and now
I must live with his disturbing presence
as well as the hideous memory
of my mother’s absence.
Perhaps it’s better to claim no parents
than two who have no use for a son.
No matter how hard it seems,
I’ll need to find some way to forgive
Bernarda for keeping such deeply
wounding
secrets.
If she hadn’t adopted me,
I might now be
a wild child
raised by cattle.