The constellations sank

when I was seven. Here’s a secret: I bottled my tears 

in my grandma’s glass marble jar—thinking all things

that glistened were stars. That wishing was as easy as stringing 

damp breath into a whisper. 

I used to fear the moments before showers: 

the bathroom’s cold tile, air vents rasping. 

But once the water warmed and lights coalesced

into glossy globes drumming against skin,

I wanted to fold the heat into my chest,

swallow the memory. There’s sweetness

in silence. The way the brain spins to fill itself,

a sticky substance dissolving under touch. I see you

in mirror splotches, craters of chipped walls, 

and now tea leaves. My abuela dragged me to divination

courses where I learned to tongue the cracks of palms

like spines, suck salt dry, and stare into honey-rimmed

teacups. Where I was supposed to see an unclenched fist 

I saw you—your shut eyelids, soft chin, your crooked

clavicle. When the teacher shut off the lights to set

crumpled paper aflame, I lifted the cup to my lips, burrowed

its leaves under my tongue, teeth—then swallowed.