NATASHA TRETHEWEY
Mexico
Mexico began as an attempt to make sense of a memory that has stayed with me all these years. As a small child on vacation with my parents, I managed to step off the pool’s edge into deep water before either of them saw what I was doing. I must have been in there only moments, but I have carried with me the image of the sunlight coming in above my head, my mother’s frantic response, and then later—as if it were part of that moment—the sound of water coming from the bathroom and the slant of light on the tiles in our hotel room. When I began writing the poem I did not know what those images would give way to, nor that—because my mother is no longer alive—I would see in that imagery the blueprint for the loss to come. (Natasha Trethewey) Mexico It always comes back like this: light streaming in, the sound of water in a basin I know is white my mother’s footsteps on the tile floor; and the long …