could observe me
    twice    stand closer
            to what
he
made
For years    I looked to it
    as one looks into a mirror
            And so
in
The Calling of Saint Matthew
    I painted my own
likeness    a freeman
    in the House of Customs
            waiting to pay
my duty    In my hand
    an answer    a slip of paper
            my signature on it
   Â
Juan de Pareja
   Â
1661
Velázquez    one year gone
    Behind me
            upright on a shelf
a forged platter    luminous
            as an aureole
    just beyond my head
            my face turned
to look out from the scene
    a self-portrait
To make it
            I looked at how
my master saw me    then
    I narrowed my eyes
Now
    at the bright edge
of sleep   Â
mother
She comes back to me
    as sound
            her voice
in the echo of birdcall
    a single syllable
            again
and again    my name
Juan Juan Juan
or    a bit of song    that
            waking
I cannot grasp
Calling
Mexico, 1969
Â
Why not make a fiction
            of the mindâs fictions? I want to say
it begins like this: the trip
                      a pilgrimage, my mother
kneeling at the altar of the Black Virgin,
            enthralledâlight streaming in
                      a window, the sun
            at her back, holy water
    in a bowl she must have touched.
Â
Whatâs left is palimpsestâone memory
    bleeding into another, overwriting it.
            How else to explain
                      what remains? The sound
    of water in a basin I know is white,
            the sun behind her, light streaming in,
                      her faceâ
    as if she were already deadâblurred
            as it will become.
Â
I want to imagine her before
    the altar, rising to meet us, my father
                      lifting me
            toward her outstretched arms.
    What else to make
            of the mindâs slick confabulations?
                      What comes back
is the sunâs dazzle on a poolâs surface,
            light filtered through water
Â
closing over my head, my motherâher body
    between me and the high sun, a corona of light
            around her face. Why not call it
    a vision? What I know is this:
I was drowning and saw a dark Madonna;
                      someone pulled me