Tanya Castro

A pregnant woman will tell you that a hot 

spring day in Los Angeles is like entering

earth’s core, in labor she walks down towards

Hollywood Presbyterian, hospital in sight

only a couple blocks she tells herself,

she is eighteen, brave for her age

there is no one at home to drive her

but she calls him, tells him the baby is

coming, she knows he will make it,

it is only March but the California south

has its own star melting through the sky

and she decides that spring is a good time

to have a baby, gas station to the left means

she is a block away, decides on crossing the

street, decides that the walk will make labor

shorter, decides that decisions are harder

when it is not only about her, decides that

her daughter will walk these same streets

after she teaches her how to walk on

N. Vermont Ave where my mother once

walked to the hospital I walk alongside her.