Bastardo de Guadalajara

Every time I scrapped my knees,
had boohoo eyes and fevers
I would receive my father’s verbal
lashings:

You’re weak. Stop crying. Do not
come to me. Run off to your mother.
Your tears embarrass me.
Did the neighborhood kids
he grew up with in Aguas Calientes
tell him similar things?

Did they call him a pussy
for crying out for his father’s love
like I cried out for his?

My grandmother told me how
my father would run to her for comfort
when teachers, classmates, and even
the principal would mock him for being
a bastard.

In 1974, my father’s Catholic school
looked down on him because he was
my grandmother’s sin, yet her hands
always held him like prayer.

As the years passed I noticed
how my grandmother’s fingers
were folded vintage maps with
creases down the center.

Her hands are a testament
of how once my father knew
how to cry. Trapped in every
wrinkle is the memory
of the tears she caught.

Of all the times my father told me
to run off to my mother did he ever
wish he could run off to his?