Seasons with Los Primos

A beautifully large, rambling house
Silly children spilling out of rooms
Screaming, playing, laughing
Spending the seasons with los primos.

Secrets, whispers, and giggle-fits
Dozing mostly into morning light
Malibu Barbie and VHS under the tree
Christmas pancakes as the snow flaked.

Scary storms whipping in springtime
The ancient tree knocking windows
Toys bobbing from basement floods
Rubber botas stuck dry in the front lawn.

Screaming laughter, endless chases
Fishing lines dropping along the pier
Sandy toes, browned skin and salty hair
Summertime ease at the Jersey Shore

Tia’s Hatchback led to maniac drives
Like human bumper cars in the back
Primas jostling, faces pressed on the glass
Tia honking, breaks pumping, cackling.

Frenetically fun times como un secreto
From step-mom and dad’s stricter gaze
Bad cousin influences lurking, stoking
Damn hippie niños, wildly daring-do.

Baseball, soccer and Marco Polo
Cool cuz dirt-covered in sweaty blood
Huge smiles from the brave and injured
Hospital rides full of American pride.

Us reserved Northerners so wrapped up
Parkas incase snow; sweaters even in summer
Watermelon seeds, BBQs, friendship bracelets
Lingering memories defying the seasons.

© March 2019, Isabel Alvear

Sibling Adventures, Circa 1983

When I was seven years old, my brother and I began playing “Space Ship Adventures.” He had these two awesome giant picture books for kids, published by National Geographic. Sitting on the end of his bed, co-pilot and pilot, we diligently cross-checked our supplies: Landing craft? Check. Translator machine? Check. Stun gun? Check. Food? Check. We gathered our supplies and imaginations, climbed aboard his bed with our stuffed animals cheering us heroes on. We dared to discover the next frontier. Occasionally, a rogue GI Joe, Barbie or Bear would try and stowaway. We donned our helmets. Readied for lift off, my brother counted off launch sequences. Bumping, jostling, shaking and shimmying, we simulated G-forces. Leaning backwards as far as we could, we dared one another not to fall over, plastering our cheeks back as flat as we could. Reaching stabilization, my brother cracked open the book, pages randomly flopping open as I peered over his shoulder.
Paraguay! Saturn! Antarctica! The Milky Way!
The Milky Way found us floating on tip toes all around his bedroom, string tied around our waists. My brother’s fingers extending fully, found my lower back, pushing me off trajectory…slowly… I spun, colliding with an asteroid blazing by, somehow nudging me into self-correcting my course… peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches finding flight, sabotaged from cargo holding… eyes bulging, trying to make it back to the shuttle before our oxygen lines got chopped off… bay doors clamping close by a rogue Barbie cackling at the controls, revenge for the botched haircut I’d given her.
On Saturn we used our landing craft constructed of Froggy, the child-sized carnival prize, her green fuzziness draped over the length of my brother’s canary-yellow skateboard. She multi-tasked as our hover craft, inflatable boat, and moon walker. Froggy, valiantly hard won by my brother up in Scarborough, was used to calm me down after the Colossal Haunted Castle Meltdown of 1982. Her solid padding perfectly held us aloft the skateboard as we Fred Flintstoned our feet up and down the hallway in our second apartment. A year later, we moved to the rented townhouse where she buffered our butts as we slid down staircases, catapulting into the living room. Careening around avalanches, sluicing through waterfalls, and dodging endless meteor showers, Froggy was ever present on countless sibling adventures.

© March 2019, Isabel Alvear

Air Space

The air between two
Things, places, beings
The emptiness
The fullness
The space amidst it all
Negative, positive
Hopeful, hopeless

Space, as in distance
Makes the heart grow fonder
Makes the heart cry harder
Wind, carries such love
Rustles peaceably through leaves
Tears down shingles one by one
In its wake—change

Space heals, or does it
Amplifies or isolates
Good versus evil
Air flitting in and around
Grey area buffering between
Things, places, beings
Altering what arises next

© March 2019, Isabel Alvear

Reliable Babysitters

Our Trinidadian babysitter conveniently lived just a few floors below us. A great-grandma, she was our guardian until she was out sick one day. It turned out she would be out sick forever.  On the elevator my parents had met an Argentinian lady, newly installed in what the adults dubbed a “luxurious unit” in the sprawl of our government housing. Awaiting full-time work, she cleaned apartments and made time for the last-minute likes of us.

My brother and I hadn’t yet eaten breakfast when we appeared in her hallway that early morning. My parents filled her tiny kitchen as she poured Nescafé and dumped white sugar like a champ into brown ceramic mugs that defined the 1980’s. Two sips into these niceties and my dad told my mom we didn’t have time, he had to drop her off. My mom practically scalded her tongue and throat tossing a few more gulps of precious elixir down. Offering a quick “Cuidase, mi niños,” she bent over giving us each a pucker, whilst rummaging through my brother’s hair. I drifted in and out, buckling on rubbery five-year-old legs. My mom shuffled me over to the living room, telling me to lay down on the sofa.

“Por favor, solamente Cream of Wheat o Farina—nada mas,” instructed dad as my brother and I exchanged glances, wilting. Two boring dad-approved kinds of cereals. No strawberry Nesquik like when our mom makes us breakfast. For a while, I rubbed at the sleep fogging my brown eyes.

A slight tickle along the back of my hand rousted me gently. My brother. I tried to shake him off, each time more violently, eyes blissfully closed. Saliva stuck to my cheek as I sighed, wriggling to reclaim my comfort. The tickling insisted. My eyes flew open, retaliation burning.

A cockroach. No one around. One thin, crooked leg at a time, he sauntered along my forearm, antennae searching. Two thousand lenses comprising his eyes, watched multiple versions of my face open in baby-faced shock; stared as my hysterical toddler-tears burst forth; noted my brother and babysitter, as they ran into the room shouting.

© March 2019, by Isabel Alvear