Mamá kept her morning in the bathtub. But why a morning, I once asked, why not instead call her moons a night? Or a waxing? Or why not simply call them moons? Without a moon, mamá said, the night would be dark—my moons are anything but dark. But to be a morning, mamá said, wouldn’t you give anything to be a morning—to even be one panel of light? I wish I could have been more like mamá. I know she prayed the same. When she called me her cielo we both knew which sky she meant. On what would be her last time replacing the night’s moon with one from her morning, mamá said light still travels even after the star has passed. I wanted to say we only see light because we are distant. I wanted to say what of those who are close. Do they see light—does light ever linger? But I kept silent this once and, as if it had never been removed, I helped mamá lift one of her mornings into the night.
Moisés R. Delgado is a Latinx writer from the Midwest and an MFA candidate at the University of Arizona. His prose appears in or is forthcoming from Lost Balloon Mag, The Pinch, Puerto del Sol, Passages North, Pidgeonholes, Homology Lit, and elsewhere. When not writing, Moisés can be found dancing on the moon.
Art by Bob Schofield @anothertower