Two Poems
Reunion
BIO
Carolina Morales is the author of three collections of poetry, Bride of Frankenstein and other poems (2008), In Nancy Drew’s shadow (2010) and Dear Monster (2012) each published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in Coal City Review, Kelsey Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Nimrod, Paterson Literary Review, Poet Lore, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, US 1 Worksheets and other journals and anthologies. Three of Carolina’s poems have been nominated for Pushcart prizes. She is a past recipient of a scholarship from the summer program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts and in 2011, Carolina’s short play, The Last December, was produced by Fire Rose Productions in North Hollywood, California. In 2014, an excerpt of her full-length play, Ladies Man, was given a staged reading as part of the New Voices program at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
South of San Diego, 5 miles north of the border,
out-of-the-way, beachfront hotel, reunited with
my sons, all four of us together, the three of them
in search of adventure, head out toward la frontera,
vanish with the sun. Evening comes as if the earth
quaked, coughed with dirt lungs, spread
cracked lips, stuck out a stony tongue to slake them in.
Far from home, all I’ve known, the sea
is a cauldron spuming an icy foam, palm trees,
like black brooms, stir the sky. The sand’s gritty
hands pull my footsteps down. Back in the room, alone,
the bed is a raft splintered by night’s storm.
Dawn’s oars of light row through closed blinds to drag
me under. At morning’s end, all three reappeared, bedraggled,
drained, shipwrecked sailors crawled to shore again
who refused to explain where they’d gone, from where
they’d come. As they stumbled to bed, I overheard
when the youngest said, it had been the worst
night of his life. To this day, I do not know the name of the thing
that swallowed them whole, my body anchored
in the tide that spit them back alive.
Bruja
We hid behind a bush, waited for her to pass,
the old woman who strolled the block
to let the sun’s last rays dry her hair,
white mane hung to her waist, thick veined
and wrinkled fingers combing through wild
strands, thin arms poked from the bagging holes
of a sleeveless housedress, skinned shins
poled into dusty slippers. Bruja! We shouted.
Old lady witch! Then croaking with laughter,
turned to run so fast, we barely saw her evil eye
squint against us, could not hear the curse hissed
through her lips. Now, I turn
to the bedroom mirror, comb through graying hairs,
check the crow’s feet clawed from each eye, blot
cream along lines engraved in my forehead, tweeze
stray hairs stubbling my chin, check
my appointment with the dentist to yank
a rotten tooth, make a note for the dermatologist to burn
the warts that plague my finger, another with
the bone man for the curve that bends my spine.