Grandma Hilda & The American Hostage

By Brianna-Christine Alicea

She is happiest on sunniest days
Her pale, supple skin
Her bright, antimony shirt
Her coconut eyes
Sluggish drag of violaceous slippers
Soprano Spanish springing from wall to wall
16 mint green plaster walls made her apartment
Broken beer bottles, ambulance sirens, police wails, 3 am shrills: a city-banshee
Her husband the brutal police officer
Seclusion was the crime
America the cell
Her frailty confines her to bed at twilight
Puerto Rican flags tucked away in sullen brown drawers
Sunset sets permanently