my abuela and virginia woolf have the same birthday

and it is today

though the date on her birth certificate might have been wrong

it took a couple days to deliver it from the countryside to the town

she grew up with a lot of siblings

her mother was an angel on her throat

these days sometimes i want to walk into the water

fingering stones in my pockets like little sorrows

like little angers, look, here it hurts, look, here it hurts

maybe she collected rocks from the dusty road on the way back from school

her dress in the wind in the dirt the horses going by, pasando, pasando, pasando

these days sometimes i feel like i am already in the water

but my abuela she is always on land 

her voice is land her voice is red rock not white rock like a mauseoleum

when she says, "Si Dios quiere"

when we talk on the phone

the other night i dreamt my abuelo was alone with me in the car

he drove us off red rock into the ocean

and then he reversed us out again

my tío says i should tell my abuela about this dream

that dominicans know how to decipher things like this

that abuela maría taught her, it was all passed down

in the old photograph maría's gaze is like a knife

my abuela's gaze is softer

in the old photograph woolf stares out the side of the page

my grandmother says i look like her

sometimes i worry that one of the women i love the most drowned herself

but the other woman, even as hurricanes, as waters drew close,

even with death on her doorstep, she stays afloat.