The night was crisp with a cumbia beat
climbing up with drunk cigarette smoke.
Men’s laughter covered a woman’s voice
and a borracho’s flush. The gravel gave
into our footsteps as my mother hurried
me to our run-down car. The yelling grew
into thunder. Stay here, she lifted me
into the back, closed the door. Leave them
alone, my father’s whispers chased after her.
My eyes followed her shadow and I slid
to the other side to line my fingers along
the bottom of the window. Over cars
my tío’s cowboy hat hovered in the heat
as my tía’s rings held up the night. Voices
muddled by the bass’s drum. His body grew
louder. A car shook, screamed. The gravel
gave into her body, a scramble, a pulse
of beats. My father: gone. My mother: wind
against her brother’s shirt. His hat upside
down on the ground. A stampede of callused
hands tearing him away. Boots pulled back
to the music and another cerveza. His hat
dusted off. A body discarded, picked up.
Amanda Galvan Huynh has received scholarships and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Sundress Academy for the Arts, NY Summer Writers Institute, and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Her poems can be read in RHINO Poetry, The Southampton Review, and Tahoma Literary Review.
