"When Does It End?" by Tricia Lopez

When Does It End?

I’ll hear birds again, from a distance
in the morning when the water is cold
and cars are still quiet.
They’ll fly into mango trees
sit on the power lines to watch
people drag their tattered sneakers through the street.
 
My grandfather will walk through that street
in my dreams. He sees me from a distance.
I’m still a little girl, I watch
a man serve sorbetes to kids coming from school. The only cold
they know. My grandfather will call out my name and
disappear. The dream is so quiet.

The nights I spend awake are too quiet
unlike the waves in Monte Limar — memories of the street
at night when the mosquitos were high and
people sat in the park listening to music. I feel the distance
of a memory. Shiver from the cold
truth that those moments are not a screen for me to watch.

I can still see my grandfather’s watch
glisten at church. It’s quiet
while we kneel for forgiveness. Father, I am cold
and out of touch with this world. I want to cross the street
away from this dome-shaped place. Give me the distance
to let go and

ease the obsession of reaching out and
feeling my grandfather’s hand. I want to watch
the volcanoes from a distance
on the shore that’s never quiet
in front of the nightclub that has a street
pouring with people. They are never cold

and maybe they will never know what cold
feels like. Doomed to only know humid walks and
uneven pavement along the street
doomed to sit inside after work and watch
the ceiling form little cracks from the rain. A quiet
end. A secured irreversible distance.

I watch my grandfather’s voice turn cold,
and brittle. I hear quiet
wishes that I am still the little girl playing in the street, fading in the distance.

Tricia Lopez

Tricia Lopez is a Nicaraguan and Salvadoran writer from Los Angeles. She has had poems, stories, and author interviews published in Dryland, The Acentos Review, Rabid Oak, The Hellebore, Marias At Sampaguitas and other places. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mount Saint Mary's University. Before that, when she was an undergraduate at Woodbury University, she was one of the founding editors of this magazine. You can find her on Instagram @trvcvv.l.

Headshot: Tricia Lopez

Photo Credit: Staff