Title Page
Dedication
New Moon
My Locket
Luna
Moon Ceremony
Nails
A Closet Full
Puffer Bra
Oakland Orange Sky
Like a Redwood
My Best Echo
Boyness
Two-Three Pulse
Mima’s Herbs
My Flower, Mi Flor
Papa Drum
Paper Walls
Juju Bolt
Pieces of Us
Black-Xican
Mama Earths
Magda’s Drum Locket
Iván Too?
Slippery Everything
A Boy Like Him
Confession
Aurora’s Aura
First Quarter Moon
On Our Drive to School
At Amanecer Community School
Waves
Tulips in the Mirror
The Plan
Smashed Heart
The Invitation
The Tablet
Mission Accomplished
Mima’s Moon
Puerto Rican Drum Dance
What Pulls Us
At Amanecer Community School Science Fair
A Black Hole
More Than Ever
Showtime
La Peña Café
Cracked
Tea and Tablet
The Invitation Reversed
Not So Secret
The Movies
When I Turn Thirteen
Secrets in the Dark
Come Over
Not Magda
Amifriend Del Alma
No Bad Without Good
Full Moon
Echo Movement
More Than the Other
Betraying Sea
The Last Days of School
World Drums Class
Partners
Solstice Locust Lake
Trágame Tierra
On the Blanket
Sick
Inside Circles
Rhythm
Oakland to El-A
Xochihuah in Concrete
Hammock Limpia
The Silent Drum
Amiga Luna
Summer
Moonshadow
Moon Has Come
Stain
A Wide-Open Clasp
Hummingbird Herbs
Chrysalis
Talking Drum
Anticipation
Recital
Last Quarter Moon
Preparations
Together
At the Door
Luna Reigns
A Circle of Light
The Cleansing
The Xochitl Ritual
Ometeotl
First Blood Ritual
Midnight Light
Author’s Note
“A Flower Song for Maidens Coming of Age”
My Moon Within
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
There is a locket in my heart
that holds all of the questions
that do cartwheels in my mind
and gurgle up to the top of my brain
like root beer fizz.
Questions that my journal
doesn’t keep so my little brother, Juju,
or other snoops don’t read them.
Questions that Mima
knows how to answer
but I’m too embarrassed to ask her
because they might
seem stupid or gross or wrong.
Like, why have my armpits begun to smell?
Or how big will my breasts grow?
Or when exactly will my period come?
I flush bright red
right through my amber skin
just thinking about it.
eleven, maybe she wouldn’t
remember what it is like
maybe she’ll make me talk about it, a lot
maybe wind herself into a lecture
about the beauty of women’s bodies
that I don’t want to hear from her
sometimes cactus lips.
Maybe she’ll just think I’m
delirious and say,
Celi, are you running a fever?
while she kisses my forehead.
My locket also keeps secrets.
Secrets tangle in the shyness of my tongue
even when I try to tell them
to my best friend
Magda.
Instead, my locket holds quiet my crush
on Iván who is one year older
than me and who can do a backflip
better than the other boys in his capoeira class.
Or the wish that Aurora, my “friend”
would just go away and
not have a crush on him too.
Or how often I sneak the tablet
from my parents when
I’m supposed to be practicing
music or dancing.
Though I’ve never seen it
I know my locket is there.
It keeps my questions
my secrets
warm
unanswered
and safe.
A beam of moonlight
squeezes through
my window’s curtain.
Luna is out tonight.
My eyes wide open like doors.
I’ll be twelve in a few months, I should
be allowed to go to sleep later
than seven-year-old Juju, who shares a room with me
but I’m not.
No matter that it is Saturday.
Round-cheeked Juju passes
out the moment his head hits the pillow.
And I stare at the May moonlight.
I watch her light up a sliver of dust
in my room.
Like a performance
small specks dance
twirl,
bounce,
float,
glide,
somersault.
They dance like I do.
I try to memorize their choreography
to use during bomba dance class
when Magda drums for me
and I am free to improvise
bring my own moves.
I smile to think that specks of dust
dance around me
though I don’t hear music.
Maybe they dance to the clicks and creaks
of our little house in Oakland
and the city crickets
and Mima’s and Papi’s footsteps
outside my door
Juju’s steady breathing.
And when Luna is gone
and I can’t see their floating
I know they continue to dance
in a dream
with Luna and me.
Mima says judging by my body
that soon my moon will come
and with it
my moon ceremony.
It’s a period, Mima, I tell her, not a moon.
She whips back,
It will come every twenty-nine days
just like the moon.
So it’s a moon cycle.
She doesn’t know that the moon
is a dancer to me, not a period.
I dread the ceremony where she will gather
all six of my aunts
some of my dance teachers
a constellation of grown-up women
to talk to me
about what it means to bleed monthly
and worse, I’ll have to openly share
my body’s secret
my locket’s secret
as if on display
like a ripe mango on a fruit stand.
I just about lose my lunch and I can’t
roll my eyes back into my head anymore.
Mima tosses her long night-black hair
to the side to explain for the twentieth time
while I turn my back and imitate her words:
Our ancestors honored
our flowering in this way.
It is a ritual taken away from us
during so many conquests.
The thought of having to talk
to anyone
especially adults
about secrets only meant for my
locket makes my insides crumble,
I won’t do it!
Please, Mima, please don’t make me do it.
Embarrassment will eat me up whole!
I shout from my heart.
Don’t worry, Celi, she calms,
your body will tell us when it is time.
Long and thick and
painted bright red
they could be.
But they are
little nubs at my fingertips
small, gnarled, and crusty.
I bite them and don’t
think about it like when you
eat popcorn during a movie.
I do it mostly when I listen
to Magda tell me a story
or when Iván is around
and I pretend not to stare.
Mostly it’s a nervous habit
like anxious ants crawling inside my fingertips.
My parents and my dance teacher, Ms. Susana, all say,
Celi, stop biting your nails!
But soon, up they zoom, right to my mouth
when I’m learning new choreography
or waiting for my turn to dance.
Mima says I can’t paint them
red until after I’m thirteen
officially a teenager
which makes me growl
at her under my breath.
Plus, she talks about bacteria
that lingers in your fingers
and though it grosses me out
I easily forget and I’m picking
at the little bits of skin
that hang from my cuticles.
Dr. Guillermo, my dentist,
said to put a bunch of sticky notes
around my house or in my books
to remind me to stop biting.
That’s how he gets his patients to
stop grinding their teeth.
I do it for a week but it’s no use.
I can’t explain it
biting my nails
brings me a comfort like
drinking hot chocolate
or eating warm handmade tortillas
for breakfast.
Monday morning before school, I can’t change
in our only bathroom, Mima’s in there
so I squeeze into the closet
to hide from Juju.
Papi comes in to call me for the
breakfast he always makes
but I stay quiet cool
I think I’ve escaped but soon Mima
comes looking and
opens the door
Ay, mija, I love it! she screams
for the whole house to hear.
I clutch at the new bra she bought me
roller-coaster twisted onto my chest.
The straps are tangled, let me fix it.
Sh sh sh, Mima! I whisper hard.
As she untangles, she calls for Papi,
Amor! Come see how well this bra fits Celi!
She shakes her head like she doesn’t believe it,
It’s amazing, just look at this muchachita, está floreciendo.
I hear Juju’s and Papi’s steps approach
their footfalls, a growing heated
pounding in my head.
I contort into a pretzel
inside that
shrinking
closet,
Mima! No!
Quieta, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, Celi—
it’s cause for celebration!
What? What’s a celebration? Papi asks.
Breasts, our girl is growing breasts!
Mima’s high pitch sears my ears.
Awesome! Juju chimes in.
When I’m eleven, will I grow some too?
Shut up! You little … I strike.
Celi, Papi warns, but then turns to Juju,
It isn’t likely, mijo. They’re mammary glands designed
to nurse young. Remember, like the mama goats we saw?
You mean, like goat teats? Juju cracks up
lets out his annoyingly loud goat bleat,
Celi’s got teats!
My skin swells with an out-of-control fire,
MIMA! I cry, as helpless as ash.
She hugs me so tight and kisses me
all over my sizzling face and head.
I’m just so thrilled for you, Celi. It really is a marvelous moment.
I jerk away and turn my back on all three of them
slip on my top, wishing to disappear into a flame.
When I turn around, Mima’s got tears in her eyes!
Vamos, Papi hugs and nudges her and Juju away,
Let’s give Celi some privacy.
I burst from that cramped space
breathing a burning anger in and out of my lungs.
My fiery eyes land on the picture
of my family and me in front of my
eleventh birthday cake and I take
scissors to their smiling faces
and mine
until
we
are in
a
million
pieces
like
my
locket.
At school
I am a puffer fish
slick new bra glistening
beneath my blouse
harmless
to those who don’t know
or don’t care what I wear
ever
like Magda
but chest expanded dangerous
to the first kid to dare ask,
Is that a bra strap I see?
After school, I walk seven steps ahead of Mima and Juju
to my ballet class at the Oakland Ballet Conservatory
only a few blocks from my house.
As my legs grow longer
my strides cover more ground.
I can’t be late or I’ll lose my scholarship.
Oakland
b
r
e
a
k
s
open before me
the sun sets brightly in this almost summer
it unfurls an orange-gray glaze over the city.
I pretend like I’m on my own.
Soon I’ll be able to walk to class
without Mima.
What could go wrong in three blocks?
For now, the wind brushes my curls
I can smell the exhaust of cars
mixed with the smell of sour grass
broken after mowing.
I pass a pile of baby gear
sitting on the curb with a sign
that says Free on it.
I slap at blades of foxtail shoots
and gather their feathery tufts
as I walk.
The man with the long ponytail
who’s always home
stands outside his house smoking
and his pit bull sits on the steps, off leash.
I hold my breath and slow my stride.
I don’t want the dog to come chasing.
I make a left on MacArthur
to find a tangerine sky
turn back to see
if Mima is still
&nb
sp; behind
me.
I’m relieved that she is
because there are kids on MacArthur
getting loud with each other.
They gather at a bus stop
in their school uniforms
a flock of crows waiting to get home.
A teenage girl starts a fight with a boy
she swings her arms at him
while he walks backward into the street
and everyone’s screaming
phones are out.
I can’t tell if they are playing or for real
so, I slow down completely and grab Mima’s arm.
A bitter citrus cielo draped over us.
Then suddenly, they are all laughing
and cursing like nothing happened.
I wonder why they joke like that
and why they aren’t going
to a dance class like me.
On Thursday, I wait to see him
walk into La Peña Cultural Center.
Iván of the shy smile
light-bark-brown skin
dark bushy curls on top
that shape into a peak
like a growing tree.
Branch-like legs
and arms so lanky long
they reach for the sun
when he plays capoeira.
I look for him in the studio’s big mirror
during my own dance class
talking to his friends
his gym bag strapped across his back
his skateboard in one hand.
He waits for my bomba class
to end and file out
and his capoeira class to begin.
He only waves, maybe says hi
every Thursday, no more and no less.
He seems to be getting to the other
side of growing up with that crackle in his voice
and the bumps sprawled on his forehead.
I pretend to gather my things slowly
my eyes strain to sideways stalk him.
In his class, he sways—a ginga—
his hands up, ready, like a boxer
graceful in that martial art
of fighting camouflaged by dance.
Last summer, we went to arts camp together
in the Redwoods
as far from Oakland as I go alone.
When we were there
we’d talk during lunch.
Once he told me he lived
with his mom and that his pop
wasn’t around much and that
even though he’s not Brazilian
playing capoeira helps him
keep his mind off missing his pop.
I opened my locket
a little too to say
though I’m half Puerto Rican
dancing bomba feels
like warm Caribbean water
swishing and swaying
happiness inside of me.
Which made him grin giggle
and made me want to bury
my blushing head in the dirt.
Though we are away from the forest now
I like to hear him say
hello in that broken way
that he does sometimes
and remember the smell of redwoods