Melissa Lozado-Oliva: I’m not a virgin but

I want to appear to you in sandwiches,

water markings on the ceiling,

mold above the toilet,

patterns in woven baskets,

a scatterplot depicting

the correlation between people who

lick their ice cream & people who bite

their ice cream & whether or not they

lie about how many books they’ve read.

I want you to gather strangers around

the image of me because you’ve gotta

make sure it’s me & not a trick

your eyes are playing on you.

& I want the strangers to confirm your vision,

I want them to tell tales about me,

I want endless products in the shape of me

available in delis & on the side of the road,

I want to be the one Abuelita’s light candles beneath

& I want to be the picture on the candle, stretched out

& replicated, I want to be the one who gets daughters

into colleges with full rides,

brings the Go-Fund-Me page to completion,

gets shoved

into the backpack during the big flood,

gets hanged

from doorknobs in new apartments

as a sign of protection, as a sign that

whoever lives there is loved

I want everyone to believe in me eventually

but I want it to be you

who finds me, plain as day,

blooming among the flowers,

shining from the hill,

taking shape everywhere I shouldn’t,

obvious & made of light.