BIO
Grecia Huesca Dominguez is a poet from Veracruz, Mexico and a proud New Yorker since 1999. She is currently a DACA recipient and a single mother to a 7-year-old. She is the founder of the Latinx Writers Collective, a collective that aims to provide community and writing resources to Latinx Writers. She currently works as a Spanish language editor in Westchester.
Instagram:@greciahdom and @latinxwriterscollective
Websites
How I died
I remember the day you
taught me to fold your laundry
just the way your mother did.
I watched you the way new mothers
watch their babies yawn.
Pants, jeans, t-shirts,
sweaters layered like wedding cakes,
socks lined up like perfect white teeth.
I learned to sort the meat into different plastic bags
the way your mother did, too.
I put them next to the love I tried to keep for you–
both slowly varnished by freezer burn.
Mexican Remedies
When I tell my tías
that I have a stomachache,
they cure me of empacho and
feed me olive oil with salt
and seltzer con limón.
When I tell my tías
that I have a cold,
they make me caldo de pollo,
they put Vaporú on my chest
and even under my feet.
When I tell my tías
that I have a cough,
they tell me to drink
a shot of tequila o aguardiente,
porque eso lo cura todo.
But when I tell my tías
that I am depressed or
have anxiety, they tell
me to pray it away,
they tell me to just move on
with my life and not think about it.
There are no Mexican
remedies for that.
How to cure empacho
Your mother and a committee–
made up of her six sisters
and your grandmother– decide
that your stomach ache
is probably due to empacho.
They make you go
into your grandma’s
room and take off
your itchy, yellow taffeta dress
so your grandma can
knead your stomach
the way she kneads masa
To make tortillas.
You try not to cry,
but you do because
your skin aches
but also because
now you have to
wear basil leaves dipped
in alcohol fastened to
your stomach with a
plastic bag until you poop.
They make you sit
on the front porch
and you watch
the town's people
go to Easter Mass.
You sit there feeling like
a prickly pineapple
and you wonder
why they can’t
just give you the pink
stuff in the commercials.
You sit there itchy
and bloated and sore
while everyone is at church.
You come to feel like this
many more times in your life,
except that at some point,
your grandma and your tías aren’t there.
At some point, you do drink the pink stuff,
and find yourself missing your grandma
and her hands.
Grandfather
He sits on his rocking chair
out back.
He uses a Phillips
screwdriver to
take the dry maíz
off the mazorcas
to feed abuela's pollos.
I ask him to help me
with my English homework.
He tries.
¿Cómo se dice
fresa en inglés?
Estraberi.
He tries to understand,
but he can't.
Did I say it right?
No sé, he says.
He tries but he can't.
He tries.
I go on and remember
this every time
someone asks if
I really didn't know
any English when I
first moved to New York.
I go on and tell them that
I knew random words.
Strawberry,
bathroom,
grandfather.