Watching the news with mami

“Ay que seguir viviendo la vida pero en alerta” — un noticiero a las once de la noche

I cradle mami’s head in my lap and remove my glasses so I may see her
better meaning my hands comb strands of hair away from her face

I silently wonder if her cheekbones were chiseled by the same hands
rosary beads curled around or were they carved out by rough New York
winters and accents and why hadn’t I gotten them as well? Mami hands me
a tweezer y empiezo a depilar sus cejas as el noticiero drums through a roll call of people we wish we knew, people we don’t know, and people we should know only because

mami worries that one day she’ll hear my name or her’s
maybe she’ll hear them spit out
by tongues that don’t roll their ‘r’s but instead bulldoze through them
flatten all sound like fresh asphalt
but hopefully someone will get our names right

Mami whispers her evening prayer
uno nunca sabe
a meditation where she cradles my newborn body in her arms
the body motherhood granted her feels new and unbroken to both of us
And each hair I pluck gathers in heaps between the tweezers
I notice the onset of wrinkles between her brow

We have the same dark pools that dart between the pixels on the TV
The faces on the screen blur when I put my glasses on again, y le digo que el tiempo se nos ha cabado

In the morning I beg for her to sing me un roro, meaning my chest swells with last night’s terrors and I am allowed to cry like a baby once more