“How to Clean Unhealing Wounds”

By Christian Hanz Lozada

How to Clean Unhealing Wounds

White Grandma fills our house and her mobile home

with synonyms, with the rhythmic swish and click

of a mop across the floor, with her voice—like a scratched

country record—saying you can’t help because you do it wrong.

But she’ll show you again, with all the lifehacks she’s learned.

Not to cut corners, no, but to make things microscopically

easier for some unimaginable later.

The slosh of water in a bucket and the creak of a wringed rag

are sounds of her search for a dead Mamma, the one who was

so young and left all them kids to a no-good alcoholic;

for a dead Daddy, the one that took her in, loved her

with quiet and constant calm, adoption, and her first shoes;

for her daughter, the one that was born with the last good genes

in her blood, the one that has been gone, gone, gone,

without a word.

White Grandma fills her cleaning bucket by putting pain

in the solution to wash everything leading up to the doorway.

You can watch, but you can’t help.

Christian Hanz Lozada is the son of an immigrant Filipino and a descendent of the Confederacy. His heart beats with hope and exclusion. He co-authored the poetry book Leave with More Than You Came With from Arroyo Seco Press and the history book Hawaiian in Los Angeles. His poems and stories have appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review (Pushcart Nominee), A&U Magazine, Rigorous Journal, Cultural Weekly, Dryland, among others. Christian has featured at the Autry Museum, the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Tebot Bach, and Beyond Baroque. He lives in San Pedro, CA and uses his MFA to teach his neighbors’ kids at Los Angeles Harbor College.