Rumpus Original Poetry: Gabriela Mayes

Blood Draw

With a needle in her hand
pointing at your frail little arm,

tiny blue veins like hair strands on a birch twig,
the nurse asks me—

but do you speak proper English to him?

The interspersed meu amor,
tá tudo bem,

in between the tug of my lips
and a deafening silence in proper English,

the words I speak translate the longing
that you will someday

feel like this double life has been worth it—
tell me sim, eu amei.