Your perfect daughter. Who would she be?
Soft and obedient? Mijita.
Not a protégé but a devotee. An adorer.
A failed endeavor but not for lack of trying. Our bond? A flash in the pan.
Our ties of blood, eternal.
Mi’ja. Mi hija.
Mine to poison.
I could thirst like you. Imagine that it was me who was lost.
But I am not. Something instead, more than a mirror.
A father’s daughter.
Una bebé de alguien
pero la hija de nadie.
You, a familiar stranger.
Persona non grata.
TESS PANTOJA PEREZ is a doctoral student in Culture, Literacy, and Language at UTSA.
Cover Art: Madame Seurat, the Artist’s Mother, Georges Seurat, circa 1882-83, Conté crayon on Michallet paper (via the Getty’s Open Image Project).