Fragments | Brotes
​
Queens, NY
Primavera | Spring
2020
What
were we doing before this?
Cancel
Essential | Non-essential
(A is sick)
Walk
15,000 cases
How far is 6ft? (N and C are sick)
The cemetery is closed until further notice.
(M is sick, Sh is sick)
M’s father died. (E’s mother is sick)
The heavy sound of every siren
Epicentro
stand awkwardly at the crosswalk
avoid contact
wait for the light
​
(S is sick)
Contingency plans
Wave at strangers
Atisbar (Glimpse)
How long will it take to trust, to touch?
Normalidad
Another month, two, next Fall, next year.
Tomorrow
Mute. Join Audio. Stop Video.
Mamá, this color is like a galaxy.
Futures
The park is closed. Why did we even come here?
L is sick.
Mamá, ¿cuántos casos hay? Búscalo.
Mamá, ¿qué sigue abierto?
Un tiempo sin tiempo.
C’s father died.
They hadn’t spoken.
No visitors.
M says his cat disappeared:
“T, the neighbor downstairs, did voodoo on it”
Mamá, take your protein pills and put your helmet on.
7 train service suspended.
M threw himself in front of the train.
​
The epicenter of the epicenter.
Corona, Queens
Exhaustion | Agotamiento
What are we counting?
(81,803 cases)
Possible | Impossible
Cancel rent. Freeze debt. Suspend mortgages.
Release detainees. End deportations.
Free healthcare. Relief for migrants. Distribute meals.
How are you?
How are you?
¿Estás?
Tears come so easily.
Carajo.
Semillas
M.K.’s father died. (103, 208)
Alone. Ashes.
D is sick. M is sick. E is sick.
Remains of magnolias blown away. Branches fall. Power out.
The sadness in the depths and the fury that burns above are not incompatible with hope, because we are complex creatures, because hope is not optimism that everything will be fine regardless. Hope offers us clarity that, amid the uncertainty ahead, there will be conflicts worth joining and the possibility of winning some of them. And one of the things most dangerous to this hope is the lapse into believing that everything was fine before disaster struck, and that all we need to do is return to things as they were. Ordinary life before the pandemic was already a catastrophe of desperation and exclusion for too many human beings, an environmental and climate catastrophe, an obscenity of inequality. It is too soon to know what will emerge from this emergency, but not too soon to start looking for chances to help decide it.
Rebecca Solnit, April 7, 2020
Mind gap. Forgot for a moment.
How to go back to – move towards
other rhythms
Reopen
Inside|Outside
Leave home, these four blocks.
No salgas mamá, estamos en lockdown.
More time.
Reset.
The sirens stopped.
Un tiempo raro.
Cuando volvamos.
Mamá, I want to stay with you.
Take a minute
on the screen
the void
breathe | grieve
chest burning
1:01pm
The sirens again.
Pots, hands, bells, whistle, song. 7:02pm
​
Groceries.
Traces of the distance.
Stock. Restock.
Empty.
First the facemasks. Then the gloves.
Then the visors.
Plastic shield over the cashier.
Security guard.
The queue.
Duct tape markers on the sidewalk.
Now orange plastic cones.
A plastic bag with surgical masks.
Take one to enter.
Turn around.
Blood gushing from her shin.
Just standing there. Shopping bags on the ground.
It was a dog.
Call the ambulance. Don’t take the facemask off. Don’t touch.
What?
Skin dangling. Sweatpants over the knee.
She walks so calmly. Asks what should I do.
Help. Keep the 6 feet. Stay by the orange cone. Keep the mask on.
Slow choreographies.
Layers of tissue. Pulsing.
rise
again
otra vez
​
levantarse
​
Mañana se activa la fase 3 en el hospital.
How many phases?
L’s father is on a ventilator.
Closer
Unending
Wind
Touch
How it all falls apart
Humanity | Humility
Halt immigration,
but not farmworkers.
Not deportations.
Contain | Spread
Dispensable | Disposable
The line to get free food stretches
22 blocks.
Dissonance
Can you hear me with the mask on?
Is she smiling back?
Stifle the cough
Street fight
Yelling under the blue surgical mask:
No estoy loco, no estoy loco
Pull-ups on the scaffolding
Sweat dripping from the thick black face cover.
Takes a drag
Puts the bandana back over her lips.
I forgot my mask today.
Hace frío.
Surfaces
What does it mean to contain multitudes, mamá?
Contradictions
It’s been four weeks
Discuss life support options
Take care of your sister
One day without the ventilator
Heart failing
Define toll
How we become
part of
each other
158,268 cases | 11,648 deaths
Fog
In betweenness
Sometimes lifts
Tránsitos
A curve shifting
slow
down
ready or not
160,499 cases | 11,857 deaths
Mamá, mamá, mamá.
Emergencia.
​
Three, four, more.
Where?
Translucent
contours of life
inert
Carry each dead bird too soon
two thin branches
to the ground
over there
cover them with leaves
Structures | Nests
Day laborers on the same corner.
Day one
(like the last)
Backpacks full.
Masks thin.
Wait. Expect.
Again.
Return.
Distant sirens haunting.
I want to tell you about home.
All this unsaid
It’s been so long.
Now it bursts.
Remind me how it started
what was there
V collapsed:
I forgot I was sick.
¿Estás llorando, mamá?
¿Por qué?
Si quieres me puedes decir después.
¿En qué día estamos, mamá?
domingo
creo
es mayo ya
¿Pero qué número?
179,728 cases | 18,451 deaths
¿Cuánto falta, mamá?
31522 confirmados acumulados
8048 confirmados activos
20571 sospechosos acumulados
3160 defunciones
71351 negativos
123446 personas estudiadas
8 de mayo
F lo tiene.
Su hija también.
Soñé contigo.
Era tiempo de pandemia
y se nos olvidaba
y salíamos a la calle.
T
Walk under the bridge
retrace vibrations
the everyday
that can’t be crossed
G’s uncle died.
Soñé que yo me contagiaba y mi hija también.
Y luego pues otra vez me moría.
R
cuartos laberintos puentes escaleras velas cajones ventanas
no sé si me desperté gritando
Can’t take a deep breath.
thick
tense
air
plywood over windows
steel railings
unfold
default
199,392 | 20,422
May 20
8 minutes 46 seconds
​
toque de queda
the other sirens
helicopters
hélices | blades
March 10
Home | Casa
36 cases
Silence
Mamá, do you believe in god?
329 cases
An hour. Another.
Out of focus
Distancias
Morning light
Fronteras cerradas
Loss | Play
Dispersion. Rerouting. Uncertainty. Confusion. Community. Connection. Boundless. Unorganized. Resilient. Insecure. Love. Frustration.
Collecting. Rebooting.
Revelations. Reorientation.
LA PALABRA Y EL OÍDO, CON EL CORAZÓN, TIENEN MUCHOS CAMINOS, MUCHOS MODOS, MUCHOS CALENDARIOS Y MUCHAS GEOGRAFÍAS PARA ENCONTRARSE. Y ESTA LUCHA POR LA VIDA PUEDE SER UNO DE ELLOS. ES TODO.
DESDE LAS MONTAÑAS DEL SURESTE MEXICANO.
Por el Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena-Comandancia General del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
México, 16 de marzo del 2020.
You are the last adult I hugged,
12 days ago.
33,768 cases
Dream of discovering a new room
Narrow drawers
Collections of small objects
Velvet curtains over unknown windows
Mamá, ¿cuántos casos hay?
¿Y si le atino?
Un duelo largo y desconocido (38,087 cases)
Devastación | Renovación
Acogerse
Duelo | Consuelo
Vamos a poder abrazarnos de nuevo.
7pm. Clap.
Windows.
Dwellers.
S and her husband are sick.
45,000 yesterday. 52,000 today.
If you eat the pasta with your hands you’re going to get the coronavirus, right mamá?
1:43am. Two gunshots. Or firecrackers.
7:50pm. 9-1-1. Ambulance. Police.
M, the neighbor, had a panic attack.
R died. Don’t tell the kids yet.
She was so generous, mamá. She loved magnets.
B had it. C had it.
​
It.
Stretch
Ache
Fragility
Sirens | Birds
(72,181 cases)
Sueño con mi abuelo. Su abrazo. Inhala.
​
“I hear everything in that breath”,
he said.
Blue, black, purple, white gloves, masks on the pavement. Debris.
I don’t think god exists, mamá. When you look out the airplane window there is nothing there.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different.
It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.
And ready to fight for it.
Arundhati Roy, April 3, 2020
Undocumented and essential.
Clap.
​
Furloughed.
Hyperawareness | Sleeplessness
​
Mi hermano, el doctor:
“Soñé que me moría.
Solo quería que supieras”.
¿Cuántos hay hoy mamá? Tú dime.
​
A’s son had it. A had it.
Can wild animals get the virus? Can our dog get the virus, mamá?
F is still recovering. How long has it been?
11pm. C called. She couldn’t breathe.
Sirens as the constant.
Doppler effect.
Escucha
April 14. 106,764 cases.
Windows into an empty school.
Distant subway lights.
Absence.
Ruinas | Ruptures.
DUE TO RECENT
CHAOTIC CIRCUMSTANCES
BARBERSHOP
WILL BE
CLOSED
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
ANY QUESTIONS
PLEASE
CALL
Wait.
Sit on the bench. But we’re not supposed to. Wrap a bandage.
Where’s the dog?
There’s the police. No, it’s school safety. What school?
Ambulance coming. Firetruck.
I can’t go to the hospital.
You have to. It’s to the bone.
The white bandage over the red stained sock.
The grey long hair tangled with the mask straps, dangling
​
Rush back. Took too long.
Elbow open the door.
Shoes, jacket, keys, bags out.
Don’t touch.
Disinfect.
Everything.
20 seconds.
The order of things.
Hands shake.
E’s mother tested positive. Her brother has symptoms.
Sh relapsed.
A’s brother died on the ventilator.
S’s uncle is out of intensive care.
I’s roommate is sick.
The ambulance wouldn’t take her.
Onions and honey to breathe.
Onions on your chest.
I has it too.
​
How long does it live inside of you?
Me gustaba todo antes del coronavirus, mamá.
Bark at facemasks.
123,146 cases
Break the lease.
​
Unfolded boxes.
​
Thunder
Fragments
Mamá, nos tenemos que esconder.
Draw the curtains.
Weather Alert
Hoy se murió un paciente en la calle.
Calzada de Tlalpan.
No había camas en el hospital.
April 20
New York City
134,446 cases | 9,708 deaths
México
8,772 casos | 712 defunciones
No te he llamado.
No puedo.
Other family members have died.
It’s been hard.
Hope you’re well.
C
Breaking points.
Within.
The bare pain of a 9-year-old.
Sobs.
Intangible.
​
Mamá, hay que jugar a que soy invisible.
reencuentros
a sense of
direction
or balance
root
disassembled
in place
​
What we allow
The limits of discomfort
What we let go.
Who dies.
Linked fates.
1:13 am
Wake up to screams
exploding
she’s running down the street
in what direction
what language
what fight
what can’t be contained
Positive
Anti | body
D’s friend died
Out of reach
Mamá, trivia:
What organ works with your heart to give oxygen to your body?
The lungs.
187,157 cases | 19,210 deaths
I recognized her by the grey hair
The feet slowly shuffling up 39th Avenue
The package with coupons
You were bit by the dog the other day.
Were you there?
You were.
They let it loose. Unleashed.
It’s just me.
The neighbors don’t like to talk. And even less now.
I have to wash this coat, it smells of cats.
Maybe that’s why.
It’s still there. The hole. Too big for stitches.
The hospital bills.
My name is E.
too loud, too fast, too soon
too much, too close, too long
too slow, too quiet, too far
unknown beats
pendulum swings
questions unasked
traces elsewhere
huecos | hollows
anhelos
P está enfermo.
¿Me oíste?
Tiene escalofríos.
¿Puede respirar?
Digo no hay camas
pero no hay nada
tregua
Airways
​
We’ve been living the politics of breath—who gets held down and strangled by police and who does not; who has to fear that and who does not; who gets access to oxygen, respirators, ventilators, and who does not; who are told to stay home; who are required to be exposed; who are trapped in crowded institutions, who can self-isolate; who are provided protection and who are not; who can get tested and who cannot. People’s oxygen meters sit next to their toothbrushes. At this extraordinary moment, the question of what lives are expendable is worked out in the administration of airways. Carried on the breath.
​
Mary Louise Pratt, June 8, 2020
one hundred thousand
lives
incalculable
meter-reader
old-school barber
list-maker
new father
gentle fierce quiet tireless genuine sarcastic avid sweaty indomitable
freed from life in prison
could fix almost anything
corresponded through handwritten notes
always wanted to be near the ocean
“An Incalculable Loss”, The New York Times,
May 27, 2020.
​
mamá, otro pájaro muerto
early feathers
yellow deep beak
break up the soil
hold on
hands joined
hay que cantar
asirse | ritual
​