Slow Motion                         Radio static and blood crowd             between my teeth. Here is where the story is fuzzy. My father is driving and saying the only                         way is to pretend it never existed. I keep             having this nightmare where the apartment in Caracas blows up. The glass I used to                         press my snotty nose up against             shatters and melts. The whale-shaped baby pool is on the terrace when the building                         collapses. The water in it floating             upward where it fell. In the dream, Abuela’s apartment is across the street and I’m sitting                         by the glass walls with a dead             rose stuck in my toddler-sized mouth. Rotten petals fall around me. Abuelo                         is alive and he’s singing sana             sana. When I tell my father I published a poem about it, he’ll suddenly brake on the highway                         and a rabbit will die             in the dark. I’ll scream and hold my breath the rest of the way home. He’ll say stop                         putting us in your poems. Blood             will be dripping down my chin by the time we get home. I will slam                         the door and it’ll shatter and my mother             will say what the hell happened? I won’t answer and instead I’ll start coughing                         and the marble in the foyer will turn red             with blood and spit. This isn’t the part where the rabbit dies but I can’t stop thinking                         about it. I’m standing there, bleeding out             by the front door, glass shards stuck in my heels. Here, the rabbit keeps dying in front                         of me. Here, I spend the rest of my life             in the foyer even after my mother sells the house. I stand there and bleed and the bunny’s body stays on the highway.