given

Ella Flores

I wasn’t told when I was born 
my name meant God is with us, 
only that it was mine, and so God 
was with me, in every article 
of clothes a stranger donated, 
in the margins of my notes 
by the end of a lecture, in my hands 
cupping my chest to feel which 
was heavier. When I was a boy 
I did unspeakable things. Took hour 
long showers, scoured closets 
and bottom drawers, found porn 
when I searched for anyone
like me. We need to talk, I knew 
meant about history, about souls and sin 
and why didn’t you tell us 
sooner? When I was a place I housed 
doctrine and doctor prescriptions,
was the field between barbed-wire 
trenches, was sowed burned and passed 
through. When I was on earth
I called my mother once 
a week, kept houseplants 
and altars, greeted limbo in each 
person’s eyes who undressed me, 
whose hands cupped my face 
into a question, and I answered 
to every name they needed of me.

Ella Flores is a poetry Ph.D. candidate at Binghamton University. Her other work appears or is forthcoming in Vernacular, Salamander, Hunger Mountain, The Summerset Review, and others.