BIO
Nancy Hernandez is a Chicana poet who grew up in Fresno, California. She writes a lot about her Texan/Mexican Chicano father and her Mexican immigrant mother. She earned an MFA from California State University, Fresno, and is a VONA alum. Nancy currently teaches English composition in the Central Valley, and when she isn’t teaching or writing, she is sewing, cooking, or sitting by the local lake.
Twitter: @nanipop16
Instagram: @nancers82
The Day I Realize My Father’s Smile Will Never Be the Same
They
have been with you since you were a kid,
and
today they will be pried from your mouth
because
they have begun to rot and
chew
away at the gum. And the years
you
mixed heroin with blood, now settle
in
delicate pearl caves and bubble flesh.
You
ask me to drive you because you must
swallow
a pill that will swallow your nerves.
I
say you will be okay, that the pain will go away,
but
you don’t say that is why you are worried.
You
are afraid, to soar, to remember old habits,
afraid
you will lose more than teeth.
I
smile at you, know exactly the words stuck
between
broken white picket fences.
The
ride is quiet until you begin to chuckle
and
I pretend to laugh too, stretch my mouth
force
it not to remember the things we lost.
I
help you off the car, hold your arm, and
sit
with you until they call your name.
We
hug and I reach for your face,
press
my lips against your cheek, teach them
to
read like fingertips on braille, trying
to
register each bump cushioned by skin.
I
say I will answer when they call me for you.