To the Eldest Daughter

By Janel Pineda

because she remembered
to unfreeze the chicken
steam the arroz
wash the dishes
and prepare snacks
for the kids
after picking them up
from school,
dinner was
always half-ready
by the time
mami got home
from her twelve-hour
hospital shift
and I’d emerge quietly
from the books
I drowned myself in
those days
when I took for granted
the things she
inevitably sacrificed:
time with friends
the basketball team
tv shows
her own homework
a childhood
learning to play
the cello

instead, she helped mami
raise the rest of us
while I wrote
she changed diapers
fixed the faucet
opened the windows
mopped the floors
took the heat
when I broke
the family camera
pulled me aside
and scolded me
for not understanding
our parents couldn’t
afford the fancy
summer programs I dreamt
begged for
and still, I’m sure
she stayed up helping
the summer mami decided
to sell burritos
every evening
after work
so she could pay
for me to go write poems
in Tennessee

years of my jet-setting
big dreaming
sleeping soundly
knowing she was
home doing
everything
that needed doing
and still she drove
six days
cross-country
alone
to watch me
descend
Old West’s steps
graduation cap
and all,
the string of roses
she spent all night sewing
draped over
my neck—

oh, hermana
I bow to you
now as I did then,
wreathed
by the grace
of every goodness
you have given me.

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Janel Pineda is a Los-Angeles born Salvadoran poet and educator. She has performed her poetry internationally in both English and Spanish, and been published in LitHub, wildness, The BreakBeat Poets, Vol. 4: LatiNext, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the U.S. among others. As a Marshall Scholar, Janel is currently pursuing dual master’s degrees in creative writing and gender studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her first poetry chapbook, Lineage of Rain, is forthcoming from Haymarket Books.