The Law or The Medicine or The Business. my mom still loved me.
so i invented her sadness & asked her to hold it like a bouquet of fake flowers.
she laughed through it all. i didn't understand. wasn't immigration a burden?
what about the life you left, i asked my mom. she planted flowers in the backyard.
only house on the block with flowers. foreclosure came like a cold wind.
it took her flowers. but that was a season. new house, bigger garden.
mijo, go get some tomates from the yard is something my mom really says.
isn't just for white people. i tried to be a good Mexican son, but not that hard.
my mom's Jesus Christ memes. maybe god believes in second chances.
still a disappointment. no million-dollar job or grandkids. Spanish deteriorating.
her blessings. she makes me kiss her on the cheek before i leave the house.
if i'm okay. she tells me i'm getting so skinny & i need to eat more frijoles.
is sit down for a good second & leave before a bad one.
José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. A recipient of fellowships from Canto Mundo, Poets House, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, & the Conversation Literary Festival, his work has been published in the BreakBeat Poets, the Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, & Hyperallergic, among other places. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, will be released in September 2018 from Haymarket Books. He lives in Chicago.