Virgil Suarez    Tallahassee        (LD)
The Cotton Ball Queen

In 1970, Havana, Cuba, my mother
took it upon herself to inject

B12 on the butt cheeks of as many
neighbors as brought her doses

and paid for her service.  My mother
wanted to be a nurse but was not

a nurse, but the house filled with women
waiting for their shots and I, at eight,

watched them lower one side of their
pants or shorts or pull up a dress

to expose their flesh to the needle.
The needle disappeared into the flesh.

My mother swabbed their skin
with a cotton ball drenched in alcohol

after each shot and threw it in a bucket
by the kitchen door.  When she was

not looking I reached for a handful
and went outside to look at how

the blood darkened.  I wrapped my
toy soldiers in the used cotton.

They were wounded.  Cuba
was sending military personnel

to Viet Nam.  My mother shot up
more people, “patients,” as she called

them.  When my father came home
there was no trace of anyone ever

been over.  My mother expected
me to keep her secrets.  On the mud

fort I had built in the patio all my
soldiers lay wounded, bloodied

and dying.   At night I dreamt
of the house filling with mother’s

pillow cases full of cotton balls.
In the United States, my mother

worked in a factory, sewing zippers
at 10 cents a piece.  25 years.

She never looked up from her machine.
Her fingers became arthritic . . . 

Every time I cut myself shaving, I reach
for a cotton ball to soak up the blood.

Blood is a cardinal taking flight
against the darkening of the sky.