BIO
Alexandra Gulden writes to represent the invisibility of Latinx people in spaces that are not usually associated with them, such as her native New Orleans. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards, the Faulkner Society, and Louisiana Writes, and she has been a mentee of both the Kenyon Young Writers’ Workshop and the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program. While completely unsure of what her major will be, she currently attends Kenyon College.
https://twitter.com/alexlagator
Brujería Zuihitsu
Maybe if she had known this land made
its money
burning witches, my mother would have
turned
her hand to the brujería which allowed
her to buy the ticket
and the little house
the second-hand car
the American bracelets
the red lip gloss
the brujería which allowed her to fly
in spite of two corpses:
the warm plane, and the metal father.
●
“Hateful Things: Someone has suddenly fallen ill, and one summons the exorcist.”
—Sei Shonagon
●
Latin Mom Medicine IRL, 49K views.
Sana
sana colita de rana,
si no sana hoy, sanará mañana
Over the phone, my tía writes me a
list:
●
Ponte vaporúb en el pecho y bajo el
nariz
●
Bebe sopa de res
●
Bebe té de manzanilla
●
Mezcla limón y sal pero no lo beba
●
Light a candle for la virgencita—
I knew you wouldn’t know how
to
say that in Spanish
●
The topic is: Latinos and Spirituality
We discuss the espiritus that followed
us
from Ecuador to Bushwick, the houses
where floorboards sang and from their
photos
dusty relatives yawned and blinked
as red eyes rolled in our infant heads
illness, headache, seizure, insomnia
the bruja our parents saw
the unspoken impossibility of a doctor
the egg, cracked open to reveal an eye
New-World maldición from the old homeland—
someone there was jealous beyond
realizing
of our mothers, belly-swollen,
and curses always hurt babies the
worst.
●
I read the building codes—no candles,
no sage.
I crack an egg—no evil eye.
I microwave ramen and turn on the
Spanish radio—
Siento una cosa fría,
Tu
me hiciste brujería.
I put vaporub in my roommate’s
humidifier, and pray.
●
When my mother boarded the plane to
Miami,
1 million mal de ojos versed after.