Woman Without Shame Read online

  Tired,

  they furl

  themselves

  to sleep.

  iii.

  A borracho

  slings a beer

  bottle against

  the sky.

  One billion

  trillion

  stars.

  After a Quote from My Father

  FOR LEVI ROMERO

  The floors are sticky

  With golden leaves

  The dogs and I track in

  On the soles of our feet.

  Winter clothes need

  To be brought down.

  Make the bed.

  Comb hair.

  Wash the body.

  Sleep.

  Too many to-do’s

  Posted on

  My nose.

  Check bank balance.

  Stop at vet.

  Pick up spray

  For fleas.

  None say:

  Look at the moon.

  Write poetry.

  Take you time, mija.

  Take you time.

  Wasps in the Buddha Bell

  Must be deaf

  or devout on

  this A. A.

  Milne–blustery day.

  On this wind-like-a-

  bugle Emily day.

  Deaf or devout,

  they neither

  desert

  their monastery

  nor appear

  enraged.

  Bell gongs.

  And they

  pray.

  Ommmmmm.

  Ommmmmm.

  Ommmmmm.

  Calendar in the Season of the Pandemic

  the ants have

  deserted

  my shower

  for the garden

  at long last

  spring

  In Case of Emergency

  Contact nearest

  cloud. Begin by

  calling Milky Way.

  Summon:

  pepper tree,

  maguey,

  donkey shit,

  jacaranda shower,

  river,

  caliche,

  scorpion,

  hummingbird,

  or pearl.

  Will vouch

  we are

  kin.

  Instructions for My Funeral *

  For good measure,

  smoke me with copal.

  Shroud me in my raggedy rebozo.

  No jewelry. Give to friends.

  No coffin. Instead, petate.

  Ignite to “Disco Inferno.”

  Allow no Christian rituals

  for this bitch, but, if

  you like, you may invite

  a homeless dog to sing,

  or a witch woman to spit

  orange water and chant

  an Otomí prayer.

  Send no ashes north

  of the Río Bravo

  on penalty of curse.

  I belong here,

  under Mexican maguey,

  beneath a carved mesquite

  bench that says Ni Modo.

  Smoke a Havana.

  Music, Fellini-esque.

  Above all,

  laugh.

  And don’t

  forget.

  Spell

  my name

  with mezcal.

  Skip Notes

  *With acknowledgment to Javier Zamora and his poem of the same title, though we each wrote our poems at about the same time, perhaps at the same moment, without having read one another’s. Saint Coincidence, as Joy Harjo would say.

  It Occurs to Me I Am the Creative/ Destructive Goddess Coatlicue

  I deserve stones.

  Better leave me the hell alone.

  I am besieged.

  I cannot feed you.

  You may not souvenir my bones,

  knock on my door, camp, come in,

  telephone, take my polaroid. I’m paranoid,

  I tell you. Lárguense. Scram.

  Go home.

  I am anomaly. Rare she who

  can’t stand kids and can’t stand you.

  No excellent Cordelia cordiality have I.

  No coffee served in tidy cups.

  No groceries in the house.

  I sleep to excess,

  smoke cigars,

  drink. Am at my best

  wandering undressed,

  my fingernails dirty,

  my hair a mess.

  Terribly

  sorry, Madame isn’t

  feeling well today.

  Must

  Greta Garbo.

  Pull an Emily:

  “The soul selects her own society…”

  Roil like Rhys’s Sargasso Sea.

  Abiquiu à la O’Keeffe.

  Throw a Maria Callas.

  Shut myself like a shoe.

  Christ

  almighty. Stand

  back. Warning.

  Honey,

  this means

  you.

  Cielo

  sin

  sombrero

  Cielo con sombrero

  El cielo amaneció

  con su propio sombrero

  hecho de lana

  sucia de borrego.

  Un sombrero tan ancho

  que deja la tierra con sombras

  teñida de añil y lavanda.

  Como el mar

  visto desde una isla

  de cara a tierra firme.

  Como los trastes de peltre

  de los campesinos

  que comen sin cuchara.

  Sky Wearing a Hat

  Sky arose

  with a hat all its own

  made from dirty

  sheep-wool.

  A hat wide

  enough to dye the earth

  indigo and lavender with shade.

  Like sea

  seen from an island

  facing land.

  Like the pewter dishes

  of country folk

  who eat without spoons.

  Jarcería Shop*

  A breakfast tray please. For my terrace.

  In the morning I invite the bees

  To raisin bread with lavender honey.

  Don’t worry, there’s always

  Enough for everybody.

  I’ll take a few of those carrizo

  Baskets, strong enough for a woman

  To haul a kilo of fresh oranges

  From the Ignacio Ramírez market.

  As if. I usually send Calixto,

  The handyman.

  Add a palm fan.

  And an ocote stick or two.

  For the fire I’ll never ignite.

  Solo de adorno, of course.

  To amuse spirit ancestors!

  Can you bring down

  That papier-mâché doll?

  Dressed in her best underwear.

  I had one just like it as a girl.

  No, I don’t have kids.

  A comal would be nice

  To reheat my evening tamal.

  Only a comal gives it

  That smoky flavor.

  I don’t know how

  To make tamales.

  Why bother when

  You can buy them

  From the nuns.

  A molcajete? Maybe.

  Would make a cool bird

  Bath for my yard.

  Ay, and ixtle—

  Maguey fibers

  Hairy and white as

  The grandfather’s chest—

  To strop the skin raw in the shower.

  My outdoor sink,

  With ribs like a hungry dog’s,

  Could use a step-stool stone

  That dances un danzón,

  And an escobeta scrub brush

  Cinched tight at the waist

  Like a ballerina.

  Please deliver a fresh petate

  With its palm tree scent

  For my bedroom floor.

  In the old days they were

  My ancestors’ coffins.

  And that ball of mecate string.

  Might as well.

  Plus a lidded straw basket

  To store plastic market bags

  The colors of the Mexican

  Tianguis—

  Sky turquoise,

  Geranium coral,

  Jacaranda, amethyst,

  Tender green of

  Fresh nopal paddles.

  A cotton hammock

  Wide as a market woman,

  So while I sleep

  The pepper tree can bless me.

  Six carrizo poles

  To hang the new curtains

  Made from coyuchi cotton.

  I came for a cage

  For my onyx parrot—

  A goodbye gift from my agent

  Attached with a warning.

  Don’t move south.

  Los abuelos,

  Who couldn’t read, fled

  North during the revolution,

  With only what

  They could carry in un rebozo.

  And here I am at fifty-eight

&
nbsp; Migrating in the opposite direction

  With a truck hauling my library.

  I live al revés, upside down.

  Always have.

  Who called me here? Spirits maybe.

  A century later. To die at home for them

  Since they couldn’t.

  And for my cobbled courtyard,

  Your best branch broom

  With a fine shh-shh,

  Like the workers who sweep up

  Saturday night on Sunday

  Morning in el Jardín.

  And, a bucket.

  To fill with suds.

  For the simple glory of scrubbing

  Mexican porch tiles

  In my bare brown feet.

  When I feel like it.

  On the housekeeper’s day off.

  To set the grandmothers

  Grinding their gravestone teeth.

  Skip Notes

  *This from the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy):

  jarcería

  f. Méx. Shop where objects made from vegetable fibers are sold. An archaic word, hardly in use anymore.

  El Jardín, End of Day

  To lose a kilo I walk

  round and round el Jardín.

  A monk hunkered in grief

  is praying, I think.

  Till I reel past his park bench

  and note his book of hours.

  His iPhone.

  Under los portales,

  a Mexican boy kisses

  a boney gringuita.

  No doubt he sees her

  with Mexican eyes.

  Bellísima

  because she’s blond.

  But los norteamericanos

  see her with American eyes.

  Nothing to write home about.

  I imagine she sees him

  with turista eyes.

  Aztec beautiful.

  But mexicanos

  see him as feo

  because he’s indio.

  Night hovers.

  Tourists lick ice cream cones

  before setting out to dinner.

  Kids in a sugar fury bounce

  inflatable rockets on

  church flagstones.

  Beer bottles belch open.

  Twilight sticky with the fried

  scent of burgers and tacos.

  Tethered to owners,

  little dogs sniff concrete.

  The cathedral an apricot hue,

  sunburnt as los extranjeros.

  Flocks of mariachi descend

  itchy for work.

  Balloon seller fidgets,

  adjusts his yoke of

  balloons and blow-up toys.

  Shoulder aches.

  Even air must weigh something.

  While the sweets vendor

  floats across the plaza

  with a tree of cotton candy

  the same colors as clouds.

  I Should Like to Fall in Love with a Burro Named Saturnino

  I should like to fall in love

  with a burro named Saturnino

  and sleep murmuring

  that name as lullaby.

  Warm my bed

  with a xoloitzcuintli

  the color of blue corn,

  and will myself to be reborn

  sunflower, ever

  faithful to the sun.

  I should like to learn to love

  with the monogamous

  passion of the parrot

  and the foolish

  valor of the chihuahua.

  I should love to dedicate

  my morning glory years

  to the inspirational ants, who

  peacefully and, without remorse

  or humor, successfully evict me

  from my shower every winter,

  lessons in nonviolent persuasion.

  I have much to learn from

  the sentinel maguey about

  fortitude, resilience, patience

  in this season of los santos

  inocentes de la política.

  And day by day I am a student

  of the morning sky.

  And night by night I memorize

  the sermon of the guru moon.

  Next to my door

  there is an ixtle rope

  attached to a bronze bell

  announcing visitors.

  It does not ring when dawn arrives

  with her furious scent of bolillos,

  orange peels, and doorways

  flushing buckets of Fabuloso

  across wet stone.

  Every day the same as the one before.

  And never as the one before. Each moment

  wrapped in newsprint and twine

  and delivered always on time.

  Figs

  FOR DR. BRUNO CEOLIN

  Some words

  trip me

  in my second tongue.

  I say

  pepino—cucumber

  when I mean

  pimienta—pepper.

  Confuse

  ginebra—gin,

  when I mean

  ginger—jengibre.

  And when

  the acupuncturist

  tells me—

  El hígado enamorado

  quiere decir

  el cuerpo está sano.

  The liver in love

  means the body is healthy—

  I mistake

  hígado—liver,

  for fig—higo.

  I prefer my translation.

  All’s right with the world

  when figs are in love.

  Neither Señorita nor Señora

  I didn’t love

  those who did.

  And did

  those who didn’t.

  Once

  I almost proposed

  in Paris.

  Because it was Paris!

  My heart

  Fragonard’s shoe.

  But he was afraid

  of the Pont Neuf

  and lingering

  in the rain.

  Another, too

  busy saving worlds

  to think of saving us,

  I press between

  the pages of my thighs.

  Tender green

  lost me to the darkness

  under trees. And

  lost himself to drink.

  Worst,

  the pest who could not love

  at all, whom I loved best.

  Shame!

  I wanted as souvenir—

  cue the violins please—

  his child.

  Even if disastrous

  for the kid

  and my career.

  But that’s history.

  More recently,

  an exploding cigar.

  Need I say more?

  God saves fools

  too foolish to

  save themselves.

  And now,

  the Orizaba

  years.

  Here I have

  no answer how

  I got from then to now.

  Except,

  with gratitude

  to all,

  I bow.

  Our Father, Big Chief in Heaven

  Our Father,

  big chief in heaven,

  I sent my assistant Calixto

  to make an appointment

  with Her Highness, la licenciada,

  who has left for lunch before noon,

  gone for the day, was fired, or fled,

  who can tell; the third director

  at this post in fifteen months.

  Deliver us

  from the bearded tenor

  who schedules at said institution,

  busy today trimming his whiskers—

  “My will be done. Thy kingdom come…

  back tomorrow.”

  Forgive us

  our trespasses, as

  we forgive el notario,

  who ought to be called el Notorious,

  for having us wait three months

  for his return call, so Calixto and wife

  can finally sign the deed on their first

  home, having given up on the

  call from their own notario, even

  slower than mine, and already

  waiting weary.

  Everything

  on earth is done

  with papeles, signatures, patience,

  and the arrival of others, whose

  destiny is out of our hands, especially