Poems by Margaret Elysia GarciaLunch Box No one would trade lunches-- Mine wrapped in paper towel or wax paper A hard bread biodegrading The oil and peanuts separating Stuck in my teeth, gluing shut my mouth. Augusta, Georgia. They didn’t have sprouts or yogurt or bagels or boysenberry jam. Those foreign things: communist, suspicious—Californian. My mama smothered Southern grits in wheat germ, fried okra with homegrown jalapenos and wrapped it all in tortillas, the South made tolerable, she’d say. 1977 Mama made sugar cookies without sugar. Stuck whole carrot sticks, hairy but clean in my lunch box with a whole apple. Other children’s lunches were desserts: A swirl of peanut butter and jelly from the same jar on magical Wonderbread Hostess pies and sweet pickles. Full thermoses of Kool-Aid. My mama said I was welcome to the cafeteria lunch, if I didn’t like what she packed. But Augusta in the late 70s had no vegetarian option, And the birthday party invitations got fewer and fewer After I sat quietly and ate biscuits while others ate BBQ and mayonnaise salads. I’m gonna get beat up, mama. I needed a lunch box from Kmart with a matching thermos and a tv show tie-in That would have solved all my problems. A Bionic Woman or Happy Days. One day my mama brought home astronaut Tang I snuck into the cupboard Put the crystals on my tongue like pop rocks. Just enough to feel okay-- Not enough to blast out of there. Inventory of the Borders of Daughter Land My daughter asks who we are—who indeed. We are from a land: Of no apologies Of no forgiveness Of something done when you are young Held against you. We are from a land of set bedtimes and daily chores: Nothing in the sink, nothing on the floor, no one at the door. We are Saturday morning loud: Mexican music on exquisite stereos in stucco houses. Dance and clean and bleach and bleach clean and dance and dance. We are a family of latinas: Who label each other too white when we succeed, Brown when things go down. Our words imprinted on both our Light and dark skins-- we are brown girls—but not that kind of brown We are white girls— but not that kind of white. We are with and without Spanish. With pretty words sent to conquer us. We are from pristine vehicles and manicured lawns because someone at a gas station called our grandparents ‘dirty’ on their way home from work. We are pretty smart for a-- We are degrees by degree. We are rosaries and candles. We are from you don’t retire; you work until you die. We are generosity that doesn’t call attention to itself We are cash only don’t use credit happiness is for later-- (when you can afford it). We are from don’t back down. We are from having the last word—even if the last word goes unspoken. We are dark lipstick and roses Blue robes and gold stars Sinners and Saints Mary and Tonantzin Cemetery playgrounds Hoop and heels Gold crosses to bear Gringa. Gavacha. Pocha. California. Home. Las Viejas (an elegy) My nina is gone. Met my mother in the schoolyard sandbox And translated the world to my English-less mother Till she had the new words to survive on her own. Godmother Mary wrote textbooks and taught Spanish and English And lived in those spaces between a Master’s degree on the Westside And her children and the run out husband on the Eastside. And the diabetes. And the disappointment And the decades later-- On the phone, once a week, the two Viejas, Talked like old neighborhood prize fighters From a neighborhood neither has seen in years. Las Viejas reminding us: A Mexican mother’s love is conditional. That we owe them our best While they owe us nothing. That we should be grateful For their voices in our heads. Mi nina y mi mama: Inoculating us against a world, the white wall of aggressive politeness; not afraid to blow the horn on everything and watch it all tumble down. Mi Madre vs. the White MIL My mother offers to put hexes on our exes threatens to haunt us when she’s dead if we don’t do our best to rise above what’s thrown down. On brown. My white mother in law told her boys to make money; insists she doesn’t see color; wears red, white, and blue for the bottom line Of brown kids in cages who look like mine. Girl Child’s Summer Job at the Golf Course Third customer of the day holds his four fingers of his right hand right in her face and yells: “Four. Outside.” He pantomimes out to the patio. She gets the menus, brings them water, recites the specials. “Oh” he says bringing his voice down, “You speak English.” Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the ebook Sad Girls & Other Stories and the audiobook Mary of the Chance Encounters. Her new collection of short stories: Other Californias will be published by Tolsun Press in 2022. She’s the co-founder and head writer of Pachuca Productions--a Latina theatre troupe producing original and social justice plays in the northeastern Sierra. She teaches creative writing and theatre with the William James Association in the Transformative Arts program in California prisons.
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Two poems |
Círculo A community of diverse poets and writers supporting literary arts in California. Somos en escrito provides a venue for these aspiring poets to feature their poetry, interviews, reviews and promote poetic happenings. |
Two recent poems by René have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and one other for the Best of the Net competitions for 2020. | Born in San Antonio, he now lives in New York City, a noted Chicano poet and multi-talented musician. He is the product of a legacy fashioned by Galván’s |
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