There are days she tells me it’s grown since I’ve moved,

the freckle above my left brow. You taught me

how to make it bigger, I say, remembering

my mother’s face close to the mirror,

mornings before church, brown pencil in hand

filling in the mole above her lip.

There was a day I was born upside-down,

speck left over on my forehead,

the only bare lip to inherit her blood.

There were days I’d take a crayon to my face,

play god, create pigment where it didn’t exist.

There were days she would sing Cielito Lindo,

Ay ay ay ay, to her reflection.

There were days I would beg, Mamí,

bésame como la novela, asking for the frenzy

kiss of Juan Carlos and his mistress that I saw her watch on TV

while she folded my cotton briefs.

There were days, I wanted her hands at the base of my neck,

wanted to toss my head side to side in what looked like love,

freckle on my lip finally.

I didn’t understand then, those kisses

weren’t meant for me, those kisses

would come.

Instead, she blessed my freckle with her mouth,

forehead to lip, lunar a lunar, kissing

where lovers would kiss me, my skin

receiving the dot where lovers

and husbands kissed her. Oh,

the weight of a hundred lips in that moment.

There are nights that we fill in our moons, mine

here in Brooklyn, hers in Boston, as she falls

asleep to Don Francisco.

I darken the spot, make it full, mimic her skin.

No se lo des a nadie, cielito lindo—

I sing advice to my face.