Orar

PART ONE: The Womb

I remember seeing a seraph on the street - or maybe it was onyx-haired Mary among the
yucca on the hill - or maybe it was my mother in the garden - or a mirror after mass. There was
no face, only dark-skinned beauty and a shining halo - or maybe it was glory - or soft candle
light – or sunlight reflected from a windowpane.
Regardless, She was familiar to me, born beyond faith, mantled in heat haze - or maybe
only allegory - or maybe soft corn silk. Mother - or God’s warrior - or a good daughter. She
believes in revolution, she believes in love, she believes in rain, Under the calluses on her
hands and the lacquer on her fingernails is the dirt and dust of the desert’s distant truth- or maybe
only soft skin- or maybe blood.
She spoke to me harshly, spun stories of drawing water from the deep, flabby belly of the Earth
and cutting her stomach into farms to feed strangers who had forgotten how to look her in the eye.
She drew for me in sage ash dark memories of the crimes of my mothers, the bowed heads of mis
abuelos, brown bodies stooped and aching, picking chiles, singing songs, feeding their families,
and I ached until I fell to my knees to sleep.

PARTE SEGUNDO: La Tumba

When I die I will be buried in the space between crop-rows and fertilize a land I will never harvest.
From my gut and chest bright heads of lettuce, heavy grape vines and lustful roses may grow and
through them I will be reborn.
Como mi hermano obscuro my blood will be wine and sipped in cathedrals, como mi Santa
Madre my skin will be petals to be held between teeth and spread across sheets y como mi premier
padre, I will feed all that come after me,
They will eat me whole and swallow me in my entirety. Maybe I will play the martyr and
visit the Morningstar in their bitter bellies. I could ask him if he resents his Father and gently wipe
from his chin the black bile that stains his skin. I want to ask him about the woman or maybe angel
or maybe mother but he will not know her any better than I do. So I will have to dance until I am
gagged back up - or maybe cry until the salt makes Them heave and once again I will be whole
above the Earth. Y como las vacas los buitres will pick me cleaner than any living man and the
sun can bleach me beyond holy until I lay in the dry Earth humbled and smiling until she comes
to me un otro vez— arms outstretched to carry me Home.

A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary - the prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.

WHEN I FINALLY BROKE
THE SCAB & LOOKED DEEP INTO
MY GUT I EXPECTED TO SEE
MOTHS OR BARBED WIRE,
EXPECTED HORSES
OR SAILING SHIPS.

IT WAS JUST SCAR TISSUE
A SLICE OF DIPPED BREAD
AND A SNAKE EMERGING
FROM ITS SKIN.
IT WAS JUST ME
BUT WITH BLOOD ON MY SHIRT.

Transgender’d pastoral

The beginning was beyond your control

every step and choice was a

push from behind it was

all just a thousand

inter - sections

of history-and-culture

pressing

down on

your body

your mother's

body your brother's

body onto the

shadow of your skeleton

on the pavement.

Look over one shoulder:

your bones there among the gravestones,

arrow carved from flint

soft-hearted wolf-pup, fat off elk-scrap

now the other:

your nerves laid out on the table,

peas blooming on the friar’s vine

white-coat curled over your own reflection

wouldn’t they weep to know all

that they have become

Cultivated;

like so many tall sparkling

cornstalks in the early blistered south

cultivated;

like soybeans folded &

unfolded in clean, white labs

this is the only shape

you could take

these are the only hands

you could have ever opened

toward the sun and your body

was never meant to be

perfect your body is not

a temple, you are not hallowed

ground you are a museum

(for whatever that’s worth)

your body has stood;

a loaded gun, your body has

bugled on the hill

your body has curled

around the trigger

and here is no other way

it could have been,

there has always been

soot-and-sap but ink was left

to our hands

so that we might share in the act of creation

oh.

What a glorious inheritance