Resist Homogenization
BIO
Katarina Xóchitl Vargas was raised in Mexico City. She and her family moved to San Diego, CA 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. Her poetry first appeared in Somos en escrito: The Latino Literary Online Magazine. You may reach her via e-mail: Tonantzin108@yahoo.com
We
stopped speaking Spanish,
on
the other side,
let
the new crack our shells,
the
California sun sting
our
raw, turn us into lizards
the
same color as the cliffs.
We
grated our hearts for garnish
on
new versions of ourselves,
wore
our skins inside out,
felt
the lemon juice of migration
burn
us like fire, until I became
ash—the
gringos pecking at my name
like hawks at lizards. Fourteen.
Drain
The
year floods broke the drought, senility unspooled Dad’s secrets,
strolled
with them under blossoming cherry branches, dangled them
like
tangled innards helplessly bubbling out of his gutted past,
until
their stench became synonymous with mother’s clenched jaw.
Some
days are better than others, even for denial virtuosos. Today, she
holds
the shell of their 50-year marriage on her lap like a piñata that bled
bats instead of candies when it broke open. This
wretched season flaunts its
petal
sundresses at her,
dusting them with pollen golden as the jewelry Dad
gave
her when he came home late. Of course, Mother sees a mistress in every
cherry
tree—dignity in every ax. We pry his boxed ashes from her wrinkly
hands,
brush her grey tresses, offer her mango licuados, chop cilantro for la
comida.
Which way to the 13 nahua heavens, now that we live north of the
Gila
River? We dust, open windows, perfume the ether with magnolias and
Lantanas
to mask the moldy words mushrooming in the basement of the unsaid,
as
Mother pictures Dad’s soul spilling like flood waters into the Zócalo,
sinking
the cathedral with its weight, looking for a drain to flow into.
When
the dismembered cherry tree litters the driveway the next day,
we
say nothing. We notice Mother’s wedding gown pours out of the trashcan,
like
a silk waterfall. She stands by the window in anticipation. Who cares if the
flood-waters
drain into Mictlan now? The garbage truck has come and gone.
We
slice papayas and lemons, refresh vases, bring conchitas from the panaderia,
and,
best of all, Mother sings again—hard-working hands resting softly on her lap.