She lost a semiprecious trinket
in the basin when she was a young girl.
It drained in the river.

She brushes her long, undulating hair
to unlock her longing,
& comb a path to all she lost—
the waves of El Rio Escondido.

She wakes with soreness
from phantom breastfeeding
after her son was lost to her.

She swims in the river of memory
where she embraces him,
smells the change of seasons in her hair
& the ripening cacao.

Her longing subdued—her hair knotted
at the nape of her neck with a hairpin,
a trinket found. 

Onnyx Bei received a BA in English from University of St. Thomas in Houston where he is now pursuing an MLA in English. He currently teaches English to speakers of other languages. His poems have appeared in Adanna Journal, Catch & Release, Elohi Gadugi Journal, Glass Mountain, The Healing Muse, Off the Coast, Red Cedar Review, and others. Bei is a recipient of the Susan T. Scanlon Poetry Award and the Danny Lee Lawrence Poetry Award.