‘I scoop you like remains from the abalone shell
Leave pieces of you that my fingers can’t hold
I want to remember you from days I ran through
Your smoke like a fly caught in a web, dancing dew
Splotched my cheeks like sacred jewels on a catrina

I caress you like a recent birth—skin of my skin
You cry out for me in dreams, in ceremony circles,
In Sister’s eyes, you long for me from ancient of days
I want to remember you from nights I glimpsed ember
Cracking like glass hearts that forget their mother tongue

I mourn you like all the colonizer languages that leave my mouth
To remember Nahuatl, make space for re-remembering 
How to splinter words in my mouth, create song from tongue
And cheek, make a pocket to hold all the birds that escaped us

Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros is a Tejana poet. Her chapbook, Becoming Coztōtōtl, was published by FlowerSong Books. She is in pursuit of her MA with emphases in literature, creative writing, and social justice at Our Lady of the Lake University.