Mikey called us the Subaru Mafia on account that I drove an Accent, and he had his
Forester. Nichole, Mikey’s wife, thought that Subaru Mafia sounded like we were lesbians. Alex had
a Nissan. The name didn’t even make sense anyway. We were couriers for drugs, gold, watches,
cash, whatever, for the less legal side of the city. Like Door Dash, kind of. Nicole explained, “In Los
Angeles, white men driving family SUVs during the daytime make up less than one percent of all
traffic stops.” That was the business model. Who knows if that’s true or not? I only got pulled over
once. I was out on a job early to catch the school drop-off rush, blend in, that sort of thing. I’d
picked up already. I don’t ever remember what it was. I hit a speed bump harder than I wanted and
spilled a Kombucha on my lap. Swerved. I didn’t even see the cop until his lights were on. No ticket,
though. Just a “be safe out there.” That’s the point, though, right? Appear without reproach. The car
still smells like Kombucha.
…

I already made the mistake of asking
my world history teacher what he meant
by circumcision to describe one of the rituals
of ancient peoples. My raised hand, a beacon
in still, cold air, voice clearly enunciated,
because my mother always encouraged
understanding of words in the context of
learning. My mother, a former, one-room
school teacher, now a mother of four daughters,
taught me to ask, speak up.

…

I never took myself seriously.
Despite what I was, I always
wanted to be a Butterfly.
I would watch them above me,
with stained glass wings
that casted out a spectrum of beauty.
In those moments, I’d feel beautiful.
Years later, and every morning
I wipe the steam off the
mirror to see myself clearly -
a Dung Beetle.

…

At 26 I lost my dad to the numbers
Of cancerous cells colonizing his organs.
Statistics gave him a fifteen percent chance
Of surviving for five years.
Metastatic multiplications strangled him for two,
And he went from healthy to 3B to 4
Until one day he was gone.
All that he was,
It was too much to be collapsed
Into 59 years.

…