My mother names me.
Memories of dew and
fear of the Spanish sun
create a monster.
Mar, she says,
or almost, and the sea
cools my family’s feet.
There’s no sea in this body.
Sweet wine, catechistic rituals.
I sip blood til I bleed red.
At my baptism, my grandmother weeps.
A saintless name, she says.
Until today, he says.
Sweat drops on his forehead.
He pours holy drops over mine.
They shimmer off stained glass.
My father comes from the northern sea.
his father makes love to his mother
in scales. A tale, I think.
We are laced with mermen, I say.
Meant for that raging, moist thing,
murderous, mythic, and mad.
Water is for fish, he says,
and pours wine into my glass.
His story is grapes pressed into the earth.
Rosy cheeked, with salted lips,
in church, I dream of the sea.
The thin wafer melts in my mouth.
I was supposed to be dew.
Rocio, a name to bring me
closer to the sea.
Aymar, my mother repeats,
as I’m dipped in holy water,
I’m drained of my name.