HusksAbuelita tells me that I was born in the month of Tlaloc: Part jaguar, part thunder and rain—grown like corn, in a smoggy valley downstream from the Iztaccihuatl. There, we knew how to cook for the dead: tamales sweet as suffering. With molcajetes, we mashed hearts stuffed with the blood of truths omitted while loving. I don’t remember the bullet that split Julio’s skull. But, imagine Mother hypervigilant for the sky falling. Death threats, caseloads of Bacardi, comida cold. Joy coagulates, like cars on the periférico. Finally, we see corruption’s fangs taller than any volcanos. Negrita is left at the pound. All night, camote carts cry. Then came the trunks, the take-only-what-you-need, leave the snow on the Ajusco, take Juanita Perez. Feel the bloody slice of the interim between indigena and immigrant. Here, my estadounidense classmates pretend I don’t exist. Abuelita dies. Even Tlaloc forgets me in this blurry desert: Santa Anas in our eyes, on the stingy side of survival. Somedays, we even let ourselves feel the grinding of the stone, identity sifting, the flattening of the rolling pin. Next time, consider keeping all the husks when you peel me. Nursemaid MagicFear runs like a headless chicken flapping into you at the market, when you least expect it to— wings tossing up dirt long after the machete has been wiped clean of blood. The blade is our phone. It swings at safety every time the calls arrive: “Los vamos a fusilar!” Meanwhile, Mami draws lines in the rugs pacing—she squawks, her feathers awry. Some will grab the rosary, others the gun. There is no time to wait for pricy milagros in the Plaza de la Conchita. But I was with Juanita making maza and, I swear, she left the virgencita on her gold throne, and summoned the pumas, monkeys and nāhuallis down from her verdant Oaxacan hills instead, right into our kitchen in the big city. She wove protective spells into my black braids, combed out my anxiety with her whispery Náhuatl, took me straight to the moon of her smiling face. Some will burn copal, others learn about battle from the zing-zing of hummingbirds. It’s no wonder Mami, to this day, though safely tucked into a California suburb, refuses to answer her phone: She didn’t have a nursemaid like my Juanita. The Body RemembersMy Abuelita nearly died in the fire that ate her songbirds, in the city Dad came from-- where he played the violin. Maybe it was cigarettes, maybe spontaneous combustion. We don’t talk about those things that happened in Juarez, where youth was bought and sold, like trinkets at the border. But ask my mother and she’ll tell you how Alzheimer’s brought it all back. How the body resurrects wounds before it dies: harkens back to terror through touch. After the brain falters, after fighting, escaping, crossing, sweating, surviving. You still die under a conquistador’s swinging sword. I prefer fire. ![]() Katarina Xóchitl Vargas was raised in Mexico City. She and her family moved to San Diego when she was 13, where she began composing poems to process alienation. A dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, today she lives on the east coast where—prompted by her father’s death—she’s begun to write poetry again and is working on her first chapbook. Somos en escrito is delighted to be the first to publish her writings.
0 Comments
Two poems by Karen Gonzalez-VidelaErasure of a Teenage Daughter’s Letter to Her Deported Mother Mom, It’s been a long time since . I think how long photo album we made that summer. Do you the copy I gave you? Or did they take it too? I still have mine. some of are torn -- I couldn’t stop shaking hands from the afternoon you left. One photo is whole — we hold hands at the peak of that North Carolina mountain, out of breath and trembling; wind shoves our clothes against skin, but we ground our feet on soil beneath us and refuse to fall. I wonder if we could have . Maybe you wouldn’t other side of a man-made border. Maybe I wouldn’t vomit questions on crumpled paper: Did the air different when you crossed ? Did you feel future , , and slip out of your hands? Did you even notice your foot crossed south? Are you less an outsider back there? Or still a traitor that tried and failed? Love, Rift of Red and Rojo I’m stuck in a rift between two stars. One red, the other rojo. They blind me. I need to close my eyes. Won’t they dim a little? Share light? This reversed vacuum spits out held-in polvo. My light dims, there’s too much dust. The stars shine brighter now. Dos tres cinco siete. Brighter still. I was red for three six seven years but my star grew caliente, switched to rojo but my tongue tripped at the rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Forgive me, for “rat” and “rata” sound so similar. One of you should come get me, claim me, take me. I swear I’m a star. ![]() Karen Gonzalez-Videla is an undergraduate student at the University of South Florida. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Creative Writing, and she loves combining these two passions in her fiction. Although she writes about a variety of subjects, she focuses mostly on the immigrant experience and the exploration of one’s womanhood. She has upcoming work at Sidereal Magazine, Ghost Parachute, and Vita Brevis Press. |
María Lysandra Hernández is a BA Writing, Literature and Publishing student with a minor in Global and Post-colonial Studies at Emerson College. She is currently the Head of Writing at Raíz Magazine, Emerson College’s bilingual and Latinx publication. For more poetry, you can find her on instagram at @marialysandrahern. |
March 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
November 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
March 2017
January 2017
May 2016
February 2010
All
Archive
Argentina
Bilingüe
Book
Boricua
California
Caribbean
Cesar Chavez
Chicano
Chupacabra
Círculo
Colombiana
Colombian American
Cuban American
Culture
Current Events
Death
Debut
Dia De Los Muertos
Dominican American
East Harlem
El Salvador
Emerging Writer
English
Excerpt
Family
Flashback
Floricanto
Identity
Immigration
Imperialism
Indigenous
Interview
Language
Latin-america
Love
Mature
Memoir
Mestizaje
Mexican American
Mexico
Nicaraguan-diaspora
Ofrenda
Performance
Poesia
Poet-laureate
Poetry
Prose-poetry
Puerto-rican-disapora
Puerto-rico
Racism
Review
Social Justice
Southwest
Spanish
Spanish And English
Texas
Translation
Travel
War
Women
Young-writers