From the selection of poetry curated by Eduardo C. Corral
When the first boy called me a wetback,
I filled his mouth with the bees that have died in my house.
How good it must have felt before the small village
echoed its grief in his throat, before the sirens began ringing.
And we were on stage which meant it was a show,
which meant our only definition of a flower was also a flower.
I waved like they taught me,
like a mini-miss something.
I didn’t want to pretend it felt good, I didn’t want
to keep saying my name into the microphone like a champ.
Yes, I could have ripped open his throat.
Yes, I could have blown him a kiss from the curtain.
I wanted to dance by myself in a dark room
filled with the wingless bodies of bees—
to make of this our own old testament
with all the same beheaded kings
pointing at all the same beheaded prophets—
the rain and our dresses still on fire.
The same unborn Christ running through every door
like a man who’s left his child in the car.
But the lights were too bright.
I couldn’t hear him because I wasn’t on stage.
I was lying on the floor of an empty house with old carpet.
I could have been anyone’s
idea of pity.
How quiet our prophets.
Let my back remind him of every river.
I pulled the bees out of his mouth
and cupped them in my palm.
I told him my Spanish name.
There was nothing dry on my body—
the lamps falling over in the dark of me.
