Rossy Evelin Lima
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Me da por confundir la tierra con la madera,
el horizonte con el descanso y extiendo la mano desafiando la neblina que enmudece. Me da por confundir el miedo con los brazos por eso me lanzo como estrella cuando el terror de la soledad me hace rugir las entrañas. Confundo, todo el tiempo, los puentes con las murallas, aquí encontrarás mis latitudes menguadas —cada impacto trata de detener mi paso- A veces me da por confundir túneles hechos de voz y miel con el destierro. |
Rossy Evelin Lima
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I confuse earth with wood,
the horizon with rest and I extend my hand defying the fog that silences. I confuse fear with embrace so I launch myself like a star when the terror of loneliness makes my guts roar. I always confuse doors with walls. Here you will find my diminished latitudes —each impact tries to stop my steps. Sometimes I confuse tunnels of voice and honey with banishment. |
Chanel Kern
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"Just be a good girl and make your mother proud."
Our silence, the silence of centuries gone by, "Remember to smile and don't talk so loud." Our need to retain some semblance of self-respect, Through our art, (writing, painting, sculpting) must lie. "Just be a good girl and make your mother proud." In wait for the completion of the domestic disconnect, For our time is not our own, but why? "Remember to smile and don't talk so loud." The artist inside us, silenced as prospect. But our hope, centuries destroyed, does not die; "Remember to smile and don't talk so loud." We linger on in want of inspiration unchecked. Our silenced voices, now, sing in muttered lullaby. "Just be a good girl and make your mother proud, Remember to smile and don't talk so loud." |
Chanel Kern
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Perfectly manicured, the cut and trim,
Our garden grows in perfect harmony. Bellflower and foxglove alight with glee, While the Iris along the pathways skim. Clear, crisp, spring water for the dove to swim, And the Monarch flitters by happily. First tended with care, the work became we; Perfection tainted by a word from him. It grew like a weed on my garden track, The tangled dark bark a stain on our trust. It grows daily with the pressure, this crack, I watched as our garden withered to dust. My only means to thwart this fullattack? Give myself to the briar patch. I adjust. |
Odilia Galvan Rodriguez
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what do they have in common
besides bed and books constellations that shine down glimmer on their heads and their luminous bodies formed from stardust aging now but not gone to ground they lie together embraced for dear life in bends of time that cannot be bent back on themselves because time can be elastic but some lines are worn to a fray so fragile they won't snap back and they won't let go no |
Leanne Haas
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I am three years old. I sit upon my father's lap, my baby sister in his other arm. We are swaying in an ocean, and the great waves rumble soothingly. My father is a tenor. Listening to my dad sing is like hearing the booming voice of God whisper. My father has perfect, straight, white teeth that look like hard pieces of candy. I tug at them. My father wears great big glasses that gloss his squinting blue eyes. His wire frames are set upon his great big, bumpy nose. I tug at his nose. My father's scratchy chin rubs against my rose petal face. I laugh like a fizzy drink, he laughs like thunder. My dad puts me to bed, and we look up at the constellation of glow stars on my ceiling; it's the big dipper. My dad tells me to pray for grandpa because he is sick. My dad never asks me to pray.
My parents tell me I was baptized by a priest who had no business being one. Father David was the kind of man who preached to his congregation about politics. Father David was the kind of man who condemned his congregation for not putting more money in to the offering basket. Father David drove a sports car. Six months old and wearing a white dress, white bonnet, and tiny white shoes, Father David is angry that a bonnet is covering my scalp. He pours water on my head, but most of it gets on my face. A lot of babies cry when they are baptized, but I'm not sure how many cough like I did. And that was the day I became a Child of God. I am three years old. I stand on my tippy toes to see a sleeping man dressed in a suit like my dad wears to church on Christmas. This man looks familiar, and although years later my dad told me that I had met my grandfather before, this is the only memory I have of meeting him. I am four years old. I go to preschool in a uniform--a jumper matched with Mary Janes and white socks with lace. My hair is in a braid. When I am bad, Ms. Voison sits me in a chair facing a painting of a sad Jesus. "You made Him sad," my teacher reprimands. I feel guilty. Ms. Voison isn't married, but this picture of Jesus sits on her desk next to a picture of her boyfriend. Years later, I come to learn that this picture is the famous depiction of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Even God is afraid of Death. I ask for forgiveness. This man looks like my dad, only without the glasses. Although I do not know if my grandfather wore lenses in his lifetime or not, even my young self knew that nobody sleeps with their glasses on. In church, I learn about Original Sin. In Catholicism, every baby is born with it. It is inescapable, and you can thank Adam and Eve for that one. I remember the first lie I ever told. In the cupboard above the fridge, my mom kept dried, sugary apple slices. This memory is dark, or perhaps the kitchen was dimly lit. Regardless, I had promised my mom I would not eat anything until dinner. Even though I was the tallest in my class, I was small still, so I grabbed a chair from the dinner table. I stand on my tippy toes, and with the tips of my fingers, struggle for the bag of apple crisps. My determination proved successful. I felt guilty the entire time, and after I had eaten my share and tossed the bag on top of the fridge (I could not reach the cupboard again), I thought of the sad Jesus picture. After that moment, I felt like I had fallen from favor- only there was no talking snake to tempt me, which made it all the worse. I ask for forgiveness. The sleeping man looks like he is made of clay, his wrinkles carved from a slab. One time, I asked my dad how people are made. He told me that God molds them from clay and places them into a furnace to harden. I am seven years old. I wear a plaid skirt instead of a jumper. I wear white tennis shoes and long white socks. My hair is unruly because I do not like to brush it, but I try to tame it with a headband. My teacher is a tall and strict lady. Her hair is neat. In religion class, just after math, we learn about the saints. One time, my teacher read to us about the martyr St. Lawrence. He was a good man, but the world did not like him. When the teacher told us that this good man who fed the poor and gave generously was condemned to be thrown in a fire, the entire third grade class gasped. St. Lawrence wasn't afraid, though. As the flames engulfed him, my teacher says that he laughed at his persecutors: "Flip me over; I'm done on this side!" It seemed to me that I was given two choices: deal with flames now, in life, or spend an eternity in the inferno. At eight years old, I struggled with the thought of being thrown on a grill made for humans. I don't think I would have laughed. Another day, we learn about St. Bernadette, a nun who has visions of the Virgin Mary at a grotto. No one else can see what she sees, and some people don't believe her. Later on, Saint Bernadette gets deathly ill, but her visions continue. When she passed, her body was naturally preserved, her young face still fresh like dew--and this was considered a miracle. I think about the calm, pale expression on my grandfather's face. He was sleeping, like Bernadette. But my dad says he wasn't a saint. Sometimes he drank too much. He was a divorced man. And men like him only pray to God when they're in too deep. But I think most people are like that, and not everyone can be a martyr. The sleeping man is very pale, and I wonder if God forgot to put him in the oven. I imagine him with a pair of great big glasses upon his great big nose. I reach to tug his nose. Later, I recognize that this is a memory of my grandfather's funeral. I am ten years old. My fifth grade class is lined up in the pews of a dimly-lit church. Light shining through the stained glass casts red, orange, blue, and green shapes onto the brick walls. One by one, we are led into a separate room to say our confessions. The church is surrounded by statues of all the apostles, and in the middle, a huge crucifix. In the back left, a replica of St. Bernadette's Grotto; Mary is covered in flowers. They all watch me. But now it is my turn to tell a priest I've never met all the sins I've saved up inside me for my ten years of existence. I leave the pew as I kneel and do the sign of the cross in front of the crucifix, and turn around to go to the room I dread. "Father, forgive me, it has been __ days since my last confession," I recite. I lied about how many days. Father, forgive me, I am sinning right now. The priest is dressed in white robes and I sit in a chair across from him. I mumble some things, some lies about how bad of a kid I am. I don't make eye contact with the fat, bald man in front of me. "Speak up!" he demands. I don't speak up. He mocks my mumbled speech. He tells me to say a number of Hail Mary's and a number of Our Father's, and I am confused as to how a certain repeated prayer could wipe away anything. The priest tells me that I should, in addition to repeating a prayer twenty times, ask God for forgiveness for being so quiet. I don't ask for forgiveness. When I die, I won't laugh until I see the light. And when I am in my casket, perhaps I will be wearing my glasses even though I am sleeping. I won't wonder if I said enough Hail Mary's, or if I was pure enough for my body to be preserved by God himself. Before I die, I want to hear the booming voice of God sing to me as I sleep--then it will be enough. |
Octavio Quintanilla
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The elders had a name for it,
guayabo. I plucked its fruit, dug my fingernails into its ventricles, scent in my hands for days like a coin I'd never spend. I sniff traces of it, still, thinking of my childhood, back then seeing myself here looking back. |
Octavio Quintanilla
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God has tiny hands.
He feeds hummingbirds, feeds gnats. No, God has gigantic hands. He feeds dictators, feeds egomaniacs. I'm not really sure about the size of God's hands. I've only heard stories. One day, after work, I saw Him. He was in the sun descending, leaving us. It was this decent that almost made me tear up. Then I felt silly for thinking the sun closing shop for the day had anything to do with God. I looked for it the next day, and there it was, the sun descending, covering its face with billboards. I didn't think it was God this time. I saw the sun devoured by the trees. That was all. Which reminds me about the storm that came a few days later, decapitating trees, burying our cars under branches, hail breaking our bedroom windows. Afterwards, neighbors huddled on their porches to watch someone's socks speed down the street, into the gutter. Someone lost their socks, I heard a woman say. They, standing around, watching the rain lose its breath, must also know that God has tiny hands, and not the big hands I thought he had. There He goes again, squeezing the sun between His thumb and index fingers, dropping it an inch right above the horizon. |
Edward Vidaurre
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Zip, Zig-Zag, dash
You yank the air with you, Across the green tiled floor Resting on the window sill Bird gazer, Thinking of ways to Feast upon the rooster's song in one pounce You throw yourself at the moon Like a ninety-eight mile per hour pitch After growing the batter tired of breaking balls Architect of nighttime shenanigans tango with insomnia Pencil in dark alley-way sexcapades Hiss, scratch, bend The shape of your voice When the door knob turns at midnight |
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