Grain

     Sunday

Early morning I wake up to find Papá has eaten one of his arms. I see him through the open door of his room on my way to the bathroom, upright in bed & naked over a mess of red sheets. He’s naked most of the time in the house, his round stomach sheltering his penis instead of clothes. First I notice the blood sticking like rust to his skin. Our eyes meet. He turns to look out the window & as his body rotates I see the left side of his torso end in a stump where his arm should be.

He sighs: “Tengo hambre.”

     Monday

The fingers of his right hand are gone.

Today I turn fifteen, but Papá always forgets. I spend the day staring into the fridge. It’s warm & empty except for a white take-home box that’s been lying there for months. I open it & sniff for the rotisserie chicken it once contained. I only smell plastic.

     Tuesday

Through the walls I hear Papá talking to himself about Mamá leaving when he lost his job as a street cleaner. He says: “Soy un bueno para nada.”

Mamá sang Cri Cri’s “Los Sueños” when I still slept in a crib. I try to remember her face but only come up the song & her voice & the way the crib rocked & made me vomit the milk she’d breast-fed me. Back then I was always full.

     Wednesday

I go out hunting for pigeons. They gather over a puddle in the street & I use my slingshot to hit one of them with a stone. The birds take flight, blending with the gunpowder color of the sky. At sunset I start a fire in the backyard & skin the fat body of the bird, heavy in my hand like a water balloon. I’m afraid if I hold too tight it’ll burst & we’ll have nothing left to eat. I cook it in a pan with no oil.

Papá refuses to eat, tells me to find a white dove. He says gray ones are filthy & takes a bite of his hand.

     Thursday

I lounge by Papá’s side, his sheets still damp, sticky, filling the room with a smell like Mamá’s overcooked her vegetable casserole. Papá’s right forearm is gone, chomped off at the elbow. He’s gathered his bones under the nightstand like the beginning of an altar for Día de los Muertos.

I ask Papá why he eats himself, what he tastes like, if it hurts. He says I’m too young to understand hunger.

“El hambre duele,” he says.

I ask him what he wants to eat.

“Pan de trigo,” he says.

     Friday

Looking out the dusty window in my room, I remember the summer I turned six & visited a farm outside the city. I wanted to see horses. There they raised chickens, cows & sheep, but no horses. Behind the old barn, wheat grew taller than Papá, & it scared me that I’d get lost in the crops.

I think of stealing wheat form the farm to make Papá pan de trigo. I go out before sunrise, walk up the old dirt road. As the sun rises, I whistle the lullaby Mamá sang, remember her voice. Que bonito sueño el de ayer… It’s afternoon when I reach the farm, but what’s left of the crops are heaps of dried leaves tangled across brown sticks.

     Saturday

I see two white doves walking across the road next to the farmhouse. I take my slingshot out, but the birds take flight when the dirt cracks under my shoes. I shoot at one of them. As the stone hits its body, my foot bends, & I fall & stamp my eye on a rock.

When I come to, it’s dark. I pick up the body of the bird, finger the ribcage behind its feathers, swallow a knot in my throat.

     Sunday

I arrive home before sunrise & stare at myself in the broken mirror of our living room, my eye swollen shut. It’s hard to look at the rest of my face with my one good eye. I call out to Papá. No answer. I cross the hall, see his bed through the open door, the sheets soaked burgundy, pushed all the way down to the edge of the bed. I enter the room. The smell gaggles my throat.

The bones under his night table are gone.

I spread on the mattress, feel his stickiness against my back, & drop the bird to the floor with a thud. Outside, the disc of orange light rises behind a patchwork of grey buildings. I close my eyes & try to remember Mamá: her tall body standing at the side of the bed. Her fingers brushing my back. Her face a blur. Her mouth open, singing.

—

Aldo Amparán is a queer writer & poet born & raised in the border cities of El Paso, TX, USA, & Ciudad Juárez, CHIH, MX. He is the proud son of a single mother & Mexican immigrant. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, The Adroit Journal, Cherry Tree, BOAAT, & elsewhere.