Rita Maria Martinez

ON BEING CALLED Mamá DURING TRIGGER POINT INJECTIONS

I lie on a white padded table in the procedure room
like an offering on an altar. The new assistant applies

Biofreeze to forehead and temples while Dr. C suctions
lidocaine into fresh needles. Armed with red stress ball,

I squeeze when needle number one punctures skin. Amidst grunts,
exclamations of ¡Carajo! and ¡Coño! escaping gritted teeth,

the assistant takes my free hand, says, You can squeeze hard as you like.
Prefaces her statement calling me Mamá. Not Mamá as in mother—

person who’s birthed, adopted, or raised children; not like when
obnoxious AC Slater calls Jessie Spano Mama on Saved by the Bell,

nor the loathsome ¡Ay Mamá! used by viejos verdes hitting
on women at Sedano’s Supermarket; not Mamma in the interjection

Mamma mia! Nor the musical. Not the ¡Mamá! (or ¡Mamita, no!)
evoking danger and fear when small children, arms outstretched,

approach outlets and hot stoves, when toddlers are about to catapult
down a flight of stairs or inadvertently step in red ant piles.

It’s Mamá or Mamita used as endearment or consolation by adults
addressing a girl child—especially when play goes wrong

and parents mercurochrome cut fingers and scraped knees.
I can’t picture myself addressing imaginary offspring as Mamá

or Papa, words reserved for my parents. When strangers call me
Mamá, it’s an unwanted liberty, an ill-fitting shoe—but issued

from the lips of this kind lady whose hand I squeeze and squeeze
as if I’m in labor, it feels right. On the way out I ask her name.

Brenda, she says. I smile and thank Brenda. Don’t bother to share mine.