2018 ISLA CUEVA
in loving memory.
I started this year off with my dog alive and
my family intact and so far I only miss my dog.
January took its sweet time leaving my home,
and closed its hinges on my throat. the night
after he died, I met my parents in a dark
parking garage, freezing in a light windbreaker.
my mother’s face was red and blotchy with
youthful tears and my father wouldn’t look me
in the eye after he hugged me and I knew,
I knew, what he’d say next would be, we’re
getting a divorce— and how stupid I was for
thinking it would end so soundlessly— I leapt
so far I nearly did a backflip off their tongues
and then he pulled the blue collar from his
coat pocket, the little metal tags still jingling
cheerfully. we sat in the car and called my brother.
he cried for the first time in a decade. I came
home the next morning to a box filled with ashes.
and June didn’t want to go, sunk its fingernails
deep in my skin so wicked and kicked my ribs
on its way out. the night of the 27th, the new puppy
shit on the kitchen floor. it wasn’t the first time,
but it had to be someone’s fault. he said, and then
she said, and then fingers pointing, and then
my father threw my mother through the table.
an audible tearing. a prolonged eruption. my sister,
howling from her bedroom. my brother, throwing
himself in the middle of the fray and crying again.
call 911. and I stood and watched and sobbed
silently. no, it wasn’t the first time. my father’s fists
knew her skin well. I was humbled at the way I knew
what was coming, yet it could ache so badly on its way
out. we saw it hurtling at us, and yet we stood still.
I said 2018, be good to me, and so it was. the more
happiness I tasted on my own, the more island
I became. I watched sinking ships with my hands
anchored to shore. I knew the flailing so intimately,
but I tired of being a lifeboat. of being dragged
down, too. (brother, I’m sorry.)
December holds us to its chest like a cat mother.
my mother’s life is in boxes, her face aged
many years in only six months. but she opens her
new front door with a flourish, shows me the freshly
painted walls with something gleaming in her eyes.
we leave the curtains off the windows. the dogs
snuggle close in my new bed. and I swear, I swear,
I’ve never seen us breathe so calmly, so fearlessly.
I started this year off with my dog alive and
my family intact and so far I only miss my dog.
January took its sweet time leaving my home,
and closed its hinges on my throat. the night
after he died, I met my parents in a dark
parking garage, freezing in a light windbreaker.
my mother’s face was red and blotchy with
youthful tears and my father wouldn’t look me
in the eye after he hugged me and I knew,
I knew, what he’d say next would be, we’re
getting a divorce— and how stupid I was for
thinking it would end so soundlessly— I leapt
so far I nearly did a backflip off their tongues
and then he pulled the blue collar from his
coat pocket, the little metal tags still jingling
cheerfully. we sat in the car and called my brother.
he cried for the first time in a decade. I came
home the next morning to a box filled with ashes.
and June didn’t want to go, sunk its fingernails
deep in my skin so wicked and kicked my ribs
on its way out. the night of the 27th, the new puppy
shit on the kitchen floor. it wasn’t the first time,
but it had to be someone’s fault. he said, and then
she said, and then fingers pointing, and then
my father threw my mother through the table.
an audible tearing. a prolonged eruption. my sister,
howling from her bedroom. my brother, throwing
himself in the middle of the fray and crying again.
call 911. and I stood and watched and sobbed
silently. no, it wasn’t the first time. my father’s fists
knew her skin well. I was humbled at the way I knew
what was coming, yet it could ache so badly on its way
out. we saw it hurtling at us, and yet we stood still.
I said 2018, be good to me, and so it was. the more
happiness I tasted on my own, the more island
I became. I watched sinking ships with my hands
anchored to shore. I knew the flailing so intimately,
but I tired of being a lifeboat. of being dragged
down, too. (brother, I’m sorry.)
December holds us to its chest like a cat mother.
my mother’s life is in boxes, her face aged
many years in only six months. but she opens her
new front door with a flourish, shows me the freshly
painted walls with something gleaming in her eyes.
we leave the curtains off the windows. the dogs
snuggle close in my new bed. and I swear, I swear,
I’ve never seen us breathe so calmly, so fearlessly.
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Isla Cueva is a capricorn from Arizona. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and attends Arizona State University. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from Rust + Moth, Glass Poetry, L’Ephemere Review, and Yes Poetry, among other lovely places. Isla is the author of Rainlily (2018), Lady Saturn (Rhythm & Bones, 2019), Venus in Bloom (Porkbelly Press, 2019), and Bittersweet (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019).