Candle Flies

I was named beneath the rustling treetops of a grove
of apple trees, by a dove that landed on my mother’s
shoulders the day I was born. In my childhood
memories, I see my bare feet splashing through puddles
of rainwater and my pale skin glistening in silvery
moonlight; I tried to catch the beams once, and wrap them
around my fingers like celestial cotton candy.

I have a younger brother now. He looks up at
me sometimes through his thick lashes, the ones that
catch the snowflakes in December. He smiles a
toothless grin and calls me his luciérnaga, his firefly,
because I am the light that makes the dark go away.