Almost Asleep / You Called Those Flowers Dragon Mouths 

The house you decided to trade for a life in the city is there,  
and then it’s not there anymore, just a void on Calle Real  
and I like it. Other times I would prefer not knowing  
how they redecorated, how many walls fell  
in the quest for the ‘open concept’ inside a pueblito so small  
nobody knows what that is (neither do I, in fact),  
but there it was: the ugly new patterns, the ochre tiles,  
the plastic-covered couches 
on the real-estate advertising my brother sent me.    

There I go, breaking in with a key  
that works as if they never changed the lock,  
ignoring the aftertaste of brandy  
and misogyny and dead rabbits,  
I go straight to the patio, move stones,  
look down the well:  

 You, giver of life, bringer of death,  
swollen ankles, small frame, golden gaze,  
bones enduring cruelty, inflicting pain,  
twisted tongue, maternal  
love,  
come  
up.  

To your power over my present I sacrifice  
these torrijas to placate your temper,  
this blood I libate to prove my resolve  
(ignore the lacking of eggs and milk and honey,  
accept your granddaughter with her refusal and her hunger).  

 Come  
up.  

Then you talk at last,  
you recognize your faults,  
I cry and remember all the good parts.  

Now you can go back down,  
hunger appeased, recipes shared,  
soil over the well. Flowers planted  
where they always were,  
named as they should:   
bocas de dragón.

Miriam Navarro Prieto (she/her), Spanish artist drifting from performance art to drawing, currently mainly creating poems and artwork on autobiography, ecology, gender, queerness, and the politics of memory. Her first self-published poem collection Todo está vivo is also available in English as Everything Is Alive, translated by the author. Her poems have been featured in Capsule Stories and The Pinch among other journals, and her illustrations in The Winnow. Ecognosis, her second poem collection in Spanish, was a finalist for the I Letraversal Contest, and her poems in English have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net in 2024. She sends out a monthly bilingual newsletter on her creative process, with plants trivia, and translated literature.