BIO
Vanessa Díaz is from Huntington Park, California. She studied at the University of California, Davis. She lives in Los Angeles.
Friducha
The body is a dimming psalm and you’ve got
a spine made out of fists, even though you’re
telling everyone otherwise. I see the steel there
even though once, someone told me I have a
face like the rain – se cae y se cae y se cae.
Somewhere there are monuments to sadness,
some red rivulet streaming thru and thru. But
not you. You say bring the fucking revolution,
even though your foot is growing a rain forest,
even though I am combing out your hair.
A veces se me olvida mi llanto, pero el tuyo no.
Your eyelashes are hummingbirds. In bed, you’re
a moon, a sickle of pain. I’m puking up all my teeth
and still, you’re laughing. Your fingers part my
face; you carve me out. You know:
what has crept into your ribcage squeezes
as you sleep. And you know: there are words for
darknesses the body cannot keep. And you say:
why should this be anything other
than the bloom of a mouth, a streak of hair,
a rash of color, a stubborn fate. See this, the new
world and old world clenched in your palms.