4

I was named by the Mexican janitor.
The way my mother tells the story,
after she squeezed me out, about
the time the hall lights flicker once,
and a doctor settles in until the morning,
they wrapped me in a blue blanket,
stuffed me into her arms. She stared down,
full of adoration and new mother claim.

But somewhere, the need for identity
bubbled inside her like a bottle of mineral
water. She inhaled my baby powder
and poops, muttered three different identities
after I love you, testing the sound
on her tongue. Then, he walked in. He wasn't
my father, no, but the man with the mop.

He wiped his hands on a pair of grubby
khakis, smiled a four missing tooth grin,
a glimmer of pseudo gold on the incisor.  
Cute boy you got dere, she whispers now,
reciting in his accent. What his name?
She looks down, unsure. How do we know
the name is right? Who tells us it's okay
and that we'll love it later?

There's an inherent pressure of the future,
no, gravity. Some people find comfort in liquor,
others in the line on a mirror. Me?
That tiny finger pressed against the window
behind the park, face covered in some semblance
of chocolate, full ignorance to the world,
beckoning a language I don't know. But,
that understanding of the trees, the breath
of another, the dispersing gravel between bike
treads-- it's all the same, really.