Sometimes I do not know my face.  

I see a woman mistaken for an abuela on the Stockton to Sacramento Greyhound.  Or, my mother if she never dyed her hair.  Maybe I am the sepia photo of my great grandmother when she was a teen.  Our eyes could be siblings, and she kept a travel journal.  

Still, this body feels like a rental.  I do not know this aching back demanding pills and Biofreeze.  The cracks in my skeleton.  The blood pressure slow as a humpback heartbeat.

I know my feet and hands – fingers as they press keys for word-making – feet as they change mood like the ring purchased in a souvenir store.  

Sometimes I am shaken by worry that I’ll slip through my skin.  This happens when I see my reflection and know this life is a rock skipping across a lake.  

Night dreams sweep visitors into my room – flashes of wonder and terror – and I count blessings this only happens at bedtime.  Otherwise, I would be in a hospital.  

I do not know this house with slanted floors and doors that open and close on their own. 

I do not know this street with artists or the thin men walking for meth.

I hardly know my brothers or my parents.  

I know a little of my husband because he knows love as a galaxy, and so I know the taste of

Pinto beans with sweet onion

Coppery roux in a gumbo

Crusty cornbread

Smoked chicken falling from its bones

 

There are other truths:

I am temporarily able-bodied, made of carbon.

The planet changes faster than we innovate.

God busted into dreams all over the Bible.

 

Maybe one day a dinosaur will pump me into a gas tank.

Sometimes my teeth fall out in my dreams.  Sometimes I chew them until they are paste.

I cringe at life’s slippery edges and know I am a holy fool, forever.