"BOSTON" 15/30

I use to slide
around naked
in the bathtub
at the age of
three,
four,
five,
six,
seven,
eight, nine, and maybe ten
in the hopes
that I’d get sucked down the
drain.
And the closest thing to Boston I understand
is my momma’s accent.
How she’d wrap me in a warm towel
and sing “Whose that pretty
little baby in the mirror?”
How she left Boston and how my
fathers father left Mexico only to
end up in the middle of the Midwest.
How I headed East first and then more West later.

So when runners are bombed
I only hear, “Whose that pretty
little baby in the mirror?”
How I can only reply with
“That’s me mom, that’s me mom!”
I’m sorry for being that asshole.
I only ever really cared about my
country when I could use it to
my advantage.
I was one of those people
who voted for the first ever
black president.
I was so special then,
because I was apart of something
so much larger than myself.
But runners in Boston
aren’t my mom or a black president, holding me
through all those years, asking
“Whose that pretty little baby
in the mirror?” 
Only how my country programs
responses of “That’s me mom,
that’s me mom!” It’s all about me,
mom.

-sonja lynn mata