Sweedle D'souza has a bachelor's of business administration, has written articles for Project Life Quality, loves to read, write , sing and spend time with her sister. Currently she's pursuing her masters in Human resources and works as an HR assistant
Jeanie Sanders poems have been published in the Texas Observer, The San Antonio Express News,Voices de la Luna, La Voz de Esperanze, and several anthologies. She is a member of the Sun Poets Of San Antonio. Clara Tamez is a graduate from the University of the Incarnate Word with a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She currently resides in Corpus Christi, Texas where she works part time with the education programs at the Art Museum of South Texas. Sharon Olinka, author of Old Ballerina Club (Dos Madres Press, 2016) was a featured writer for the San Antonio Book Festival, and her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat, the anthology Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, The Cafe Review and New York Quarterly.
WOMEN SPEAK!
Claire Monserrat Jackson is a poet, novelist, and artist. When not furiously scribbling, she is campaigning for causes she cares about or tromping through the wilds of Ohio. Priscilla Domínguez is pursuing her MA/MFA in English in literature, creative writing and social justice at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. She is the director of creative nonfiction for Write Art Out, co-founder and design editor for the Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, and creative nonfiction editor for The Thing Itself.
Johanna Briones is a Chicana, a devoted mother and wife, and a student. She Studies Mexican-American Studies and Son Jarocho music in San Antonio. Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvania native whose works have been published in various magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of five published books of poetry, a microchap, and the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018). Miss. Glory(ous) Jones currently works at Arby's and is also a youth leader for Learning Tree after school program. Poet Dee Mahone' says her work reflects on some of life’s toughest challenges and uses language to weave together one visceral, human experience from the perspective of a black, queer woman. Instagram and Twitter: @kitschycurls La Femme Nakita is a poet, a wife of 19 years, and mother of 3. She has a poetry CD out on all platforms titled "Poetically Yours".
Joyous Windrider Jiménez is the co-founder of Raise The Whisper. She has performed and presented her original work in venues around San Antonio including Bihl Haus Arts, Jump-Start Performance Co., Guadalupe Theatre, Gallista Gallery, LadyBase Gallery and San Antonio PuroSlam. www.joylei.com
September 29, 2018 San Antonio, TX
My body is not an object
Half a Woman
I am more than just an ass meant to be christened Or breast to be stared at instead of my eyes Acknowledge me in my entirety Because my body is no an object It is not something to be fucked with It is not something to be fucked, period It is my way of expressing myself, To remind myself that My body is not an object It is me It is the excitement The joy The determination The representation of a masterpiece in the making Not here for defacing And there will be no replacing Me because My body is not an object.
The system has flaws. Don’t let it choke you. That’s what it wants. Stand for an America that stands for dreams. No matter who is dreaming them. They’re scared your dreams are bigger than theirs. So dream on.
by Gloria Fisher-Jones
by Clara Tamez
#post Me too Before/ Since/ After I will move forward Finding joy once again With the scar as my shield
Katelina By Miryam Bujanda My mother married a gringo, a gringo with a habit, who willingly ran away with it when she threatened to leave him, only to pick up her own. Picked up booze and dropped her children. Let another man in and kicked us out. Found out recently that mi abuela, que en paz descanse, She was the jefa who everyone on la cuadra Yes, she grew up with restrictions went to talk to when troubled. She took children that were not hers into her home That instilled fear inside of her, She had to abide by inhibitions, and never kicked any of the ones that were out. Her pleas no one wanted to Although she never met this troubled child, answer. I hope she will allow my prayers But she never let go of her hope for children who need their parents She had herself to believe in, into the home where she rests. She battled through the stigma, Abuela...pueden pasar? Her perseverance helped her win. By Joanna Briones
No fake laws or regulations, No injustice nor empty threats, Can ever stop a woman to live, A life of dignity, love, and respect. by Sweedle D'souza
Viktoria Valenzuela is a writer and the host/ organizer of 100 Thousand Poets for Change: San Antonio since 2011. She is a Macondista, Chicana-motherwriter-activist, and educator who's work focuses on motherhood and civil rights. Hailey Laine Johnson was born in San Antonio, TX and currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is currently healing from adolescent trauma and is returning to writing. Anel I. Flores writes her way through the memory of riding El Chalan Ferry, to cross the border from la casa de her abuelos en Los Ebanos, TX to the homeland of her bisabuelos en Diaz Ordaz, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The passage of leaving one world, entering another and living in both, replays itself in Anel’s creative process, morphing into stories, as she embarks upon telling the bare-boned, brokenopen and animated truths of the Lesbiana, Chicana/x Queer person.
Noemi Martinez is a writer, poet-curandera and media myth maker with Mexican and Caribbean roots living in the militarized borderland of deep South Texas, birthplace of Gloria Anzaldúa. She is a radical single mami with punk tendencies. "Six, Six Gawd if you're feeling fancy is a 28 year old queer black poet, hailing from San Antonio, Texas. As the founder of The Spice Rack, her personal practice is in encouraging specifically women of color to "survive". Six Gawd introduces herself as a "survivor", and promotes "all women of color are survivors Wendy Barker is Poet-in-Residence and the Pearl Lewinn Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Barker has one son, Dave Barker, and is married to the critic and biographer Steven G. Kellman. Caryn Wideman For this poem, I not only drew on my own experiences but on conversations with women at Haven for Hope over the last seven years I have volunteered there. I have learned so much from my involvement with the homeless, poetry, and the peaceCenter, though they all tie together.
Sarah Thompson is a writer residing in San Antonio with her husband and charming baby boy. Before moving to San Antonio, Sarah was raised in the Philippines by her missionary parents and draws much of her inspiration from her travels home. Cassandra Perez is a xicana poet who discovered her love of poetry at 14 years old in a juvenile detention center. She strives to give a glimpse into the life of a xicana woman with no lies, no boundaries, and nothing but hard core truth.
Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson (poet, singer, hip hop artist) serves as a, Writer In the community for Gemini Ink, co-hosts: 2nd Verse, and hosts Jazz & Poetry with a purpose. Marisol Cortez is a creative writer and community-based scholar rooted in San Antonio, TX.
Farris Open palm, Far from high five Instead takes a nosedive, Slapping ass cheek. It’s like going through an intersection At full speed, And suddenly seeing the other car Run it’s red light It becomes flight or freeze or fight Suddenly, you’re 9 years old again As your father’s friend asks you to sit on his lap Eyes You don’t know what they mean yet: Eyes that see you And you don’t know what they mean yet But as his open palm explains, You soon will
Yeild But your body knows this violation, Your fists are moving your claw is gripping bicep White knuckles gripping a paddle Raw, You feel your fingers impress in biceps I mean impress in the paddle I mean— Yield. You have been taught to defend yourself You have been taught to fight back You have been taught that a freight train does not Yield.
You feel like a freight train, But you slam on the breaks— recognizing a familiar face An unfamiliar palm slapping ass cheek Attached to a familiar face It’s like slamming on the breaks knowing you had right of way smiling back to avoid the collision Like all is right and in place. That inevitably will happen You feel like a freight train and freight trains do not That already has happened yield You don’t know what it means, Green light, red light, Mother may I— Mother asks you to pull your skirt down For them You’re at the family reunion, And mother asks you to pull your skirt down To tuck in your chest You’re 10 years old, And you don’t know what it means yet, But as open sole, flexed hard to slam on the break reminds you, In the wake of the whiplash As your cousin, your uncle, your aunties’ spouses explain, You soon will White water rapids 50% fear 50% thrill It’s you against the wild unknown, You’re separated from definitive death By the thin, yellow fabric of the raft And of course the life vest, Also in yellow reminding you To slow down. To yield.
You are 28, and you do not know what this means They say it’s all in good fun You don’t want tears to cause rust, but— It feels like slamming on the breaks When the other car ran their red light. You are 28. 50% thrill and 50% fear, Flight or fight, and you’re all fight. It feels like White water rapids, white knuckles clenched tight, It feels like trying to stop a freight train When the cars are playing chicken with Train tracks. You are 28. 50% thrill and 50% fear. All machine metal moving forward, fast Don’t forget the lessons you’ve been taught Don’t forget your flight, your freeze, or fight. You are a freight train, all machine metal Moving forward fast, And freight trains don’t Yield.
Reminding you of the lessons you’ve learned Pull your vest down, don’t sit down too comfortably in this raft It is not here for you. This river is not your world You are just luggage, here for the ride, White water rapids level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 White rapids, slapping against ass cheeks I mean slapping against white knuckles I mean whitened knuckles, The crown of a clenched fist you wish your fist was crowned in rings Level one to level five Zero to 100 Puberty to adulthood Calm river running to hot blood boiling Remember the yellow; remember the 50% fear Remember the training that you had been taught
by Dee Mahone
Empowerment I shall empower every woman in the image of me. To embrace her creative nature that strengthens me. To lead my sisterhood into the place of acceptance. Where serenity is understood and lies no deception. To pick her up when she falls. To be encouragement when she calls. To be the leadership and guidance. To excel in the positive mileage. That women before me fought to own. To be the woman that walks with her so that she’s never alone. You see the lord is the shepherd that leads my way. With my head held high on a weary day. And I will demystify the myth that women are weak. Demolishing the stereotype that we have no strength in our feet. That only a man can make us complete. That loving yourself is obsolete. I shall empower her without competition. The thought that we can't uplift one another is nothing but fiction. I shall lead with heart and without friction. And I shall crush any chauvinistic prediction. Listen; to the invisible super woman in me. That embraces the power of femininity. I am living in free; wisdom of nobility. I'm allowing my Savior to guide my feet. It is most high that I seek on the mountain peak. Courageous is the woman you see. Beautiful butterfly soaring high majestically. As I flow sweet serenity. My story is written in the book of Queens. Dreams chased & conquered by the ink in my pen. I am Woman. Beautiful. Outspoken. Outcry of strength when the spirit is broken. And I shall rise in the franchise of successful women. Ruler of my own destiny. Dancing in the moonlight. Awakened. Refreshed. Empowering the golden context. I shall empower. by LaFemme Nakita
Accusation Since that day when an old man stubborn in his senility his reasoning dirty and clouded greeted me with solemn respectful words for my loss I was dressed in a bright color but tears in my eyes grieving for the sudden death of my husband Then, before I could respond his eyes filled with malice seeking to wash me in shame
Tainting Her To-do (a prose poem) Like Balthus, he paints a female model in a chair. Dabs of sickly green define her. The air around her ocher.
Buy headphones, leave the house, get more sleep, Keep clean. Clean everything again, laundry, desperation, get all of the papers in order and pay everything special attention, read books, stack books, organize my collection, leave no stone unturned nor doubt unquestioned.
Such small hands, he tells her. He’s fifty, with no pubic hair.
To do, to do, each little thing a list of what needs to be done: erect an altar, finish a thought, cry, sleep, eat a meal that doesn’t leave me feeling like a bloated body filled with bacteria and pus, light incense, keep smelling like incense, wake with the sun, read again, read more, walk through life like a dream, walk through life like a dream again, go through the spiral cycle, live a long time, or long enough to start to talk about death like a well worn traveler who has been able to avoid it and now waits on it like a long lost friend, dream and write down your dreams, eat again, purchase groceries, get stone faced drunk and foolish and read Seamus Heaney, write again, read again, go through the work cycle and slowly, carefully cobble together collections of words and thoughts and perhaps actions, as those things go. Take a writing workshop, discard everything you learn, give up on human relationships, read a book, read everything that you’ve meant to read, take this computer with you through a tour of the underworld, plunge into the depths of hell, give up on the outside world, live by whatever measure I am able to live, begin again and again and again, then start all over, start the cycle, end the cycle, circle back through an eternal hoop, coming closer and closer and closer as the circle closes in on itself. There are no more places that hold the power of magic— they come up like vapor from the ground, and then they die in their strange place.
Work full of prepubescent labial folds. Be my little girl, he whispers.
Approaching me with a mocking air and a wink whispered in my ear "Lady, don't you think you should let the dead body cool before dressing in red?"
She is twenty. Healthy and rosy. No, she says. You won’t take my soul. Gets up from
He wanted to humiliate me mocking me with thorny words trying to make me guilty of a nonexistent crime
his chair, leaves him there.
From that instant all changed I live with a new purpose a rebellion to deny preconceived ideas about a widow
Clean everything, light candles, find a bag and find some paper,
by Sharon Olinka
That is the life cycle, that is the place granted by strange creatures that make demands, and there are things which have to be allowed and made real and excused— to do lists, things crossed off, this thing has to keep itself in balance, thats the real heavy hitter there, balance, always balance.
by Alicia Zavala Galván
About Waking Up
Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I feel like I am weighed down By the paralysis of a broken-hearted daydream Wherein I’m awake and moving mundanely through my day And I’m reading about children Separated from their mothers in the news Robotically, unconsciously All I do Is donate small sums of money to various causes Safely, from behind my keyboard I donate $10 here, $20 there Keeping my hands clean But I can’t do it any longer I’m too tired of typing, clicking Staying safe The next time I wake up I want to be enabled To help those who can’t walk Can’t reach, can’t sing, Can’t even hold their mothers before they go to sleep I’m tired of this day dream I want to Wake up
by Sarah Joy Thompson
Now I’m laying back in bed to take the weight off off my lower spine and listening to Miles Davis and smelling my room, the smell of copal smoke filling up all of the ghost places, the sun going down in a Sunday way, everything smells bad and dead and like sour chunks of the earth. There are mysteries and then there are the banalities of everyday life. Pastoralism takes up the plow and mows down the undone field, romances the black spots into coal marks, or dust or something that can be melted down, made like liquified gold, remade, melted, turned into the thing, THE thing, the thing with a life of its own, That is what is to be done. by Hailey Laine Johnson-Kelly
BALAM
the most beautiful trauma
Pale of hair; modest of brain. Her thimbleful of power bent into a tiara of smug disdain and racism, and I'm sent
Unlovable so we are the same and this time when he was on my back
to "pick tomatoes," ha-ha. And I want to make a scene, scream and scratch and claw. But she's my boss and I'm sixteen. She doesn't see the balam behind my eyes. Can't feel the jaguar coursing through moonshadow inside my veins, lambent-eyed, immune to lies and the banal ignorance of this dye-job guanaco. Loud and coarse; a dime-store Stentor. All his will and testosterone bent to the task of martyred tormentor, and his flapping mouth is a vent discharging vitriol against anyone too female, too smart, too brown, too queer, to fit into the cult of Flag, Phallus, and Gun. But soft, under his bluster: the raw smell of fear. He doesn't see the balam inside my skin. But he feels it, hates it. Tries to hide behind dull barbs and thick arms and logic (thin) the fear of the sun-stunned rabbit at noontide. Long is the count. Many are the arrows cast with contempt and fright and hate in equal measure. But the will of a mountain's made to outlast, and the Jaguar rises and feeds at its own pleasure. They don't see the balam, when they lock you in cages infernal. Its rising means an end to their dark and dominant day. But listen! Feel! Leaping, obsidian-mantled fire in glory eternal. The balam stirs; and would-be hunters are just more prey. by Claire M. Jackson
and said I wasn’t myself because I had told him with a no I tried, and I talked to the tall trees why'd I tell anyway who is of something strong enough to walk away and yes yes my body is real- I’d ask myself, but the trees were wrists and say- is this what you want is real and I sat very still very still until it was cold and words were said to me but I seen this before and I want to disappear into nothingness or that fairytale of ending up on my back and my scars and my spine he says he's cutting his way I talk to trees when I’d pretend my spine was made of lyrics that say you are the most beautiful trauma and the scars I traced once told me his skin had been the sun went away and the shadows he says he's cutting his way I talk to trees by Noemi Martinez
Las locas we were always crazy magic in that light we were always different bright in a different light maybe beautiful we were always painful look away double nightmare rainbow at night we were always trouble magic tough in that light we were always by Noemi Martinez
Venus, Upon Your Landing Upon your landing They will think of you a materialized figment Scoff secretly snickering at your savagery. They will shield their eyes from the monstrosity Select the parts of you that disgust them most then discuss them most Find themselves too fascinated to turn away. They will describe your four lips in foreign tongues. Think you enigma Call you 'gorilla' with pale pointed fingers, Like Death gesturing the gateway to Sheol, Like an accusatory congregation turned executioners They want to crucify your image bleed you dry in their crosshairs cage your spirit, yet set your body free. Your every movement will become their amusement and your misery. You are too tribal for their rhythm. Your body is lost in a drum. You are stretched beyond this atmosphere. Your brown is too buttery. It slides across their cuticles as they poke. They want to stroke away your strength. Strip your buttocks nude and behold the leagues of your depth. They have dissected your limbs, yet they cannot grasp your raw anatomy. You are beyond their comprehension. Your presence commands too much attention. The site of you burns holes in their psyche. You are a crater in the memory, so massive. Upon landing you caused a sonic boom. Consumed all of their energy, like a blackout. They cannot concentrate. In return they will devour your flesh in every way imaginable. Their ears will ring like the belts of light that surround your plump belly. They hunger for your different. You taste rich upon their pallet, but you turn so rancid in the gullet. They cannot digest you fully. They will gag upon regurgitated remains. Their throats will sizzle with acidic bile commingled like a rumba with all of your flavors. As you are heaved up they slip curses into your skin. Upon landing all that remains is a vomited beautiful. by Andrea Vocab Sanderson I, the Fire "For only through the body, through the pulling of flesh, can the human soul be transformed. And for images, words, stories to have this transformative power, they must arise from the human body--flesh and bone --and from the Earth's body--stone, sky, liquid, soil. This work, these images, piercing tongue or ear lobes with cactus needle, are my offerings, are my Aztecan blood sacrifices." Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza When I was still myself, I remember kicking at clouds on a summer day. Atop a rickety swing set it occurred to me that the barrio has its own source of gravity. The sun darkened my skin and I willed the space about me to succumb to my purpose. I kicked high into the wind though the earth sucked me to her. After my head was level with clouds, I defy expectation. My long hair lifts away from my shoulders; sucked anew of sweat and dust. My wild hair and I luxuriate burning radiant amid rainbowed pillars of the sun. I am Coyolxauhqui, undone The weightlessness of my own way takes me; even as I fight for a fractal of permanence. Kicking my feet out, to break apart this suck of gravity, I pulled myself back into myself, back to the body writhing between ropes. I kick open my space. The freedom of blue sky held me above the earth. The weight of my own body might brought me back, or forward through time. Only the swing weighted once more can insist that I fear for my life. I am cosmic... Unearth me. I am Xicana Cosmica. I am to give birth at dusk. Momma calls me home,“Prieta!” and when I become the next elder, a mother, Behind the scrim of living daylight, we are merely a memory loop in that hologram. Despite a childhood rape that spilled my blood like ocean tide. I've reach for my head; the moon. by Viktoria Valenzuela
Open Letter To Men, For the love of all that is sane in this world, for progress to prevail through struggle, stop telling women what to do.
by Six Gawd
To my father, who told me to stop Trump bashing on Facebook out of fear for my safety To my partner, who warns me to be careful with what I say on my social media because my comments may come back to bite me in my ass in the future To an acquaintance on Instagram, who told me to “deal with it” after I posted a “Resist Trump” call to arms My response to all your requests is the same—no. I am tired of women being treated as fragile dolls who need to be kept in their protective packaging I am tired of all marginalized groups being told to sit down and be cordial And even more, I am tired of men thinking that I give one fuck about being polite Fuck that shit. I live in a country where rich, white men have constantly tried to regulate what women in order keep the general population distracted from the real issues, while passing laws that screw over a marginalized group. I live a life where the men closest to me, criticize me when I decide to speak against any type of barrier. “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” Suffragate Laurel Thatcher Ulrich said. To my father, did you ever think that I am perhaps okay with the repercussions of whatever I say? To my partner, Have you ever thought that I want future people, to know where I stand? To my acquaintance, Did you ever think that we got into this current political shit show because marginalized people have been told to “deal with it” all their lives? I know I am on the correct side of history, so why would I be afraid to let anybody know that I stood against a bigot, xenophobe, fascist, misogynist, racist, thin-skinned, man-child? No, I am not afraid. So I will say, fuck Trump, Pence, Conway, Huckabee-Sanders and anybody that thinks that these people are in the right. The only right they are in is in the alt-right and fuck those people too. So no, I will not stop bashing Trump, I will not watch what I say and definitely not “deal with it.” I want women to do what men have been doing since the dawn of existence— whatever the they want without someone crawling up their ass about it. I am not here to be nice, to be polite, to be pretty, or to be quiet. So men, stop telling women to do. There is only one thing I really want you to do, and that is to listen to me. Help us take down those who are trying to hold us both down. by Priscilla Domínguez even if you do All nations All my relations Gather in one space. We resist, our throats are straining In resistance, we are the snakes on the skirt of Coatlicue She lifts our spirit to four directions: Red, black, white, yellow… Our poems are the first line of defence. This thirst is fueled by the tirant and we name his every offence. We write down the words for the people. Resist. Resist.
i won't stop being me just because it makes someone uncomfortable, i was born to be me, will never apologize for that; won't be tamed or own clipped wings because i shoved myself into a hole i was never meant to unlock—i am not the key to your survival or the broodmare that will be more than content to be your arm candy, a shrinking violet, or the girl who sits idly by; too many years of my life i wasted waiting for moments that never came—no more, now i will take fate into my own hands and guide my own ship; finally i remember my own voice, my own magic, and my own divinity—you'll never own me or my body, if i surrender to your love it's because you understand that i am wild and you will never tame me; otherwise keep walking i won't be disrespected for i've had enough of tempers and tongues that would unravel my dreams for their own entertainment—i am who i am, and i will never leave me; even if you do.
by Viktoria Valenzuela
by linda m. crate
Soul of America Why be stationary in life she tells herself if you can move from where you are and right things. So she hikes up her steel encased skirt and with the spirit of Rosa Parks guiding her torch lifts up out of the harbor and stomps her way through the everyday traffic that has come to view her as theirs, and theirs alone. Causing waves on dry land she makes her copper plated way toward sorrow. For she has heard the cries of the poor in a land beyond her watered reach. A land where the wretched seem to populate the Earth as the wind sends cries from their children. Children who are taken away from their parents’ loving arms and displaced miles from any voice that could quiet hurt. With one mighty swing she feels like whacking something with her torch and straightening this World mankind has created. She wants to call out into this desert of lost hope, “Come to me.” She wants to take the chain that lays at her feet and throw it out toward these huddled masses pulling them up into her being for protection. These, these are her people. Their dream for a better life is the soul that has created America. So she trudges on and hopes when she arrives at her destination no one stands in her way. by Jeanie Sanders
BETH AND JARYN
SURGERY, A LITTLE HISTORY Stunned by the god's "feathered glory," Yeats wrote of Leda, in one of my mother's favorite poems. How many painters have rendered this image, of a woman swooning with a swan. But the trickery, the deceit of Zeus, disguising himself. And now, these doctors of mine, with their downy reassurance. Robotic surgery, they coo, easy as slipping into and out of a pond. Not gods, but white-coated, so feathery-voiced I believe them, sign the forms. Their sleek offices, paintings of lakes, of cool streams on their walls. Such calming waters I lie back, feet propped in the metal stirrups, till the speculum is pressed inside, probing for what lies underneath: stems of water lilies, small fish. Scraping the silt. No "sudden blow," the surgeons promise, "minimally invasive, laparoscopic, tiny incisions, needle-thin instruments. Nothing to fear," they stress. But photos I've now seen online show massive silvery cones, spiked bills that angle like spears toward the bull's eye of a belly. "Indifferent" beaks that peck around inside, pulling sagging organs upright, shoving them into new places, wrapping them in mesh like the webs between toes of swans. "A month," they say. But it's more like twenty before my body's mine again, works again, though I'm told I'm a lucky one, patients half my age may need a catheter for a year, even two, "post-op," and often, they add, women will need the surgery redone. We say we're "put under" an anesthetic. And now that Mom's been gone ten years, I'm sinking down into murk to remember the time during eighth grade when she picked me up, surprising me after school, my gray Samsonite packed in the Ford's back seat: "We're going to the hospital, honey, just a little operation, so you won't have those awful cramps anymore." After the nurse stripped me and tied me into a blue robe that left my bottom bare, she told my mother to leave. They swooped in then, medical students, checking for cancer, they said, and pulled aside the gown, fingered my breasts. The next morning, the nurse wheeled me down the hall for the little operation. The doctor and his white-jacketed flock were waiting, thought the anesthetic had kicked in. I was awake all during their hooting, their laughing. Spread-eagled in the stirrups, the clamp inside, the scraping. No Yeatsian "white rush." The blood that followed. Mom never knew. Shortly before she died, she told me how, the first year she was married, her doctor insisted she come to the office Saturday morning. Got her on her back, fiddled with her clitoris, diddled her, his fingers pulsing inside her, experimenting, to make her come. The same ob/gyn who delivered me, who believed women should suffer in childbirth, no need for an anesthetic while he rammed those forceps deep inside to haul me out. The body holds these incisions. For years. And genetic memory exists: we carry molecular scars. No eggs from such visitations. Only hard-boiled knowledge that you won't get the truth from these hook-scissored beaks when what they do is tear, rip into you, and maybe, maybe you'll recover, put on new knowledge with your own power. Flap back at them, beat your own wings against them. And snap. ~first published in Prairie Schooner by Wendy Barker
the first hot day of the year: that’s what i say when i arrive at the memorial i’m a family friend. most there know me by discarded anglicized nickname, shadow self i slipped out of in adulthood, to leave behind forever. most there know me as childhood friend of sarah, younger sister of the woman who passed, beth: ten years older than us, always too old, too cool, too grown to relate to when we were kids. but at sarah’s wedding more than ten years ago now beth and i seemed suddenly closer in age as adults, and she had joked about my left arm, in a way only those in the know can comfortably do: hey! we have matching scars! she’d said, and i knew then we were kin, despite the gap in years, from the same family of the weird, the unfit, the mutant. sarah too. disease girl, kids had called her at the time i met her, in bulverde in the late 1980s. AIDS girl. the spots on her skin like faint bruises somehow had foreknowledge of the scars i would carve into my arms years later. somehow even then we could see it. from the trailer park? asks a cousin or sister-in-law of sarah’s mom when she introduces me as sarah’s childhood friend. no, says glenda, they lived up in the hills, in a house. oh, in a house in the hills says the cousin or whoever, with knowing. but she doesn’t know. our friendship always crossed lines that way, because the mark of unfitness— visible or invisible —did too. and in the night after the memorial i will wake and write down lines that appear to me in a dream: this difference, this kinship is an orifice, a chink in the carapace of privilege which opens out onto the world which opens outward to connection to compassion earlier this week there was another memorial a rally for a black transwoman who was murdered here in san antonio downtown on the riverwalk. a man who’d been kissing kenne mcfarland pushed her into the river claiming
she’d grabbed his ass— these are the words i wanted well of course she had, to speak then they’d been kissing. but but which had not yet written kenne couldn’t swim themselves inside me and so she drowned until now, words and the people had rallied because to scatter here the courts had failed like ashes to charge, much less indict to commingle the man she had been with the limestone, the caliche, kissing, her murderer. the karst of the in-between spaces where a couple days later, i spent so much time on the first hot day with beth’s sister sarah of the year, i find myself when we ourselves standing silent at the mouth were outsider of four holes laboriously children. dug into the limestone and white clay caliche of the city's hinterlands on the banks of the guadalupe by Marisol Cortez where it crosses 281 where Sarah and I grew up together, crossed lines for each other and where the ashes of two lovers, spouses— beth but also jaryn, first jaryn and then beth —would be spread before the planting of four mountain laurel trees, native to this place, mid-march pregnant with their drooping purple clutches, with their drunken visitor bees and butterflies, their grape soda scent so sweet and fleeting it breaks your heart each year— as does the citrus, the sight of the redbud and bluebonnet i thought about the violent death of kenne mcfadden, publicly recognized at least for the obscenity it was and i thought about the silent and unrecognized violence of jaryn’s suicide death, jaryn also trans, and likewise of beth’s—fellow madwoman, matching scars. she had finally settled on the right drug cocktail, her mother told me as she arranged her daughter’s photo beside a tiny printed note she had written to Beth during an earlier scare the month before she finally went through with it, planning to send it pinned to a plush dragon with rainbow wings: you have a foundry of strength within you my daughter, my beth— you are a dragon but when jaryn died there was no medication powerful enough to assimilate the loss there was no force in the universe with enough strength to right such violence but the violent deaths of a transman and a madwoman should not go unrecognized or uncommented on as such, i feel and so this poem is the words i didn’t know i wanted to speak standing at the open mouths of those four waiting holes, watching beth’s mother and sisters scatter the ashes of beth and jaryn inside together as an aunt rocked and wailed for the grief of her sister.