Love in a Basement 

On a Wednesday night        Stepfather drank two        and a half cases of Budweiser plus a smallhandle of Honey Jack        He was swinging his hips        next to the stereo speaker nailed to theleft basement wall        Mother wore a checkered half-shirt tied up in the center  I noticed theway the holes in her veins        danced like speckled string lights         in her stumbled sways My back against the stairwell        I waited for Stepfather to ask me for another beer and I shook my knees to the hum of the music         taking note my veins didn’t have holes        instead bled blue bridges across my elbows        I watched the way Mother and Stepfather floated        across the room        without shame of their scars or the scraps of needle heads        on the floor that almost looked like embedded jewels         or the tips of spinning wheels that if touched you’d be clutching arms in a ballroom waltz 



a lake monster comes from 

I keep trying to find a way to talk
about this thing that lives inside
me         this yellow ball of light
or maybe it spits fire        or maybe
it's stray strands of my mother’s hair 
floating in a placid pool of stomach
acid unharmed and stuck like a swallowed 
stick of gum         It climbs        It glows 
It keeps reminding me tha
tI haven’t called my mother and
reminds me that I don’t believe in a God
and that I was taught to pray to a God
only in the face of death and that the face
of death looks a lot like a bruise
looks a lot like my mother tying a piece of string 
around her forearm         a lot like a rotted plum
its corroded insides pushing out of needled skin 
‍
The thing that sits inside sets off a stream
of fireworks that smack against the roof
of my mouth but it asks me not to speak
asks me to be numb to the swift sparks of pain 
In the same way God is numb to sins 
In the same way a fetus sits still aquatic
In a pool of its mother’s bile
counting dust specks like fallen stars        My monster
bears his teeth each morning        they shine
like the piece of my mother’s hair        bowed around
my neck        and I wish to be taken into its mouth
swallowed inside out and to become        My monster’s monster 
small and naked        curled fetal        and I’ll create
small fires       rogue constellations out of
stray swallowed things circling above 



a call to prayer 
‍
beyond the bend   losses and body parts     floating
in the purpled river     I dream of God     He is sitting 
do-gooder posed     velvet slung around    His hips   a mouth 
that reminds me of my Mother’s tongue     He asks me to 
be patient     stay with knees bent     always asking
I paint Him a picture of your lips     pink and yellowed
the slow gripping lines     the dip of your bow   cunning 
and wide      I am bent over asking to wear your fears
I am bent over wearing a blueish cloth made out of skin 
I ask Him     to let me keep you     tucked away in the moon loop
of my ear     beneath the way we always knew     we were for each other 
In this dream     I see     our future you wear a golden cross
my Mother asks of you       I am empty necked and wash my
kisses in cold water    un-stinging and fluid     I hold hands with
the earth     and know you are just     nearby 

A Cabrera's poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in The New Guard, Brain,Child Magazine, Colere, Acentos Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Best Travelers' Tales 2021 Anthology, Mer, Deronda, and other journals. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and adapted for stage by the Bay Area Word for Word Theater Company. She writes, teaches, dances and ride bikes in San Francisco, but not always in that order.