Flamenco Hips and Red Mud Feet

Half and Half

3 | Half and Half (double sonnet) She won’t drink her milk choked down half of it and now the carton, a waxed house, waits half empty like herself or half full of mother’s Southern Baptist grits and the still unspilled secrets— foreign as overheard Spanish verbs like metir and engañar, unknown to her now, but later she’ll learn new ones like negar and herir. She’ll watch her mother’s face shine wetly, turning pages of the Bible, asking what to do when he comes home, half full of | 4 bitter coffee dregs and light from dead stars. But both the Bible and the house will whisper nada . . . while the girl wonders if the house is half empty or full of tears that bead on wax as the house splits in two. engañar: to deceive herir: to wound metir: to lie negar: to deny ...