Image by Michael Gaida
1.
Growing Old in the Spring
After lunch, Mother steps out into the patio,
pulls up her plastic chair, faces it to the hills.
The rabbit she fed earlier returns for more.
Mom wobbles to a stand, notices her slippers
are still on, slides the door open, heads back in.
When she steps out again, ten minutes later,
she brings carrots, wears cheap gardening clogs,
spots a red-tailed hawk circling overhead.
Hide! Mom warns the rabbit. A neighbor hears,
the dogs on the hill bark, rabbit’s brown fur
blends in with California desert, hawk flies on.
I come out just in time to hear Mother sigh.
She offers me a tired smile, proudly points to
her own little patch of desert glowing with gold
acacia blossoms. Exclaims: I water every day,
just like your father did! Pulling up another plastic
chair, I sit beside her, pour our agua de Jamaica.
The silence between us is as soft as her hand.
It shrinks, like my Mom. It holds the energy
of wintering, despite the flowering hill,
the wet earth, the offerings of fresh carrots—
reminding me that the hawk is still hungry.
2.
The Half That Runs
After the last frost melts, rebozos come off,
coyotes have their pups, and we loosen the desert soil
with song—tilling out terror, rooting out the deer in us
that freezes before death’s speedy headlights. Lithic-like.
No one can find us in this canyon. I keep soft sage
leaves in my pocket. They say: When afraid, inhale.
Dad says the shifting slice of the Rio Grande
cut us in half, so we landed on both sides of the Chamizal:
one part was thrown into a basket, and the other runs,
like a halved chicken after the butcher’s chop.
We are the half that runs. Each spring, we follow
the blood stains of those that ran before us.
Mom says a mountain lioness came to inspect
our work one morning: make sure we still knew
how to dance like eagles, listen to the land,
weave baskets from willow leaves, be still.
I don’t know the road off Black Mountain.
But I know where the biggest cacti grow, how to move
like a tumbleweed, light a fire with sticks and stones—
dry grasses from the sunny side of the hill. Patience.
No one can find us in this canyon. Sometimes, though,
I think I see the light moving closer. Don’t freeze,
don’t freeze, don’t freeze. Sage. Deep inhalation. Run!
3.
Filling the Hollow
Apparently, my tree no longer drops fruits. The river has nearly gone dry. Receding waters give rise to a cluster of mushrooms here, a little boulder there: “cysts and fibroids”, the medical voices say. They wish to nonchalantly snip, and slice and discard my womb in under an hour, hollowing me out like their Thanksgiving Day turkey. When I ask about alternatives, they sound the alarm, complete with hand gestures masquerading as flashing, red lights. “It’s the size of an orange!”, they exclaim, wide eyed.
I feel the cattle prod descending on my brown back. But I’ve done my research: the orange will likely shrink, it requires monitoring, not carving. Still, lunchtime is nearing, so they drag me to worship at their altars, bow to their god, line their purses. Suddenly I am a mermaid wriggling in the net of systemic slaughter—a routinely discarded uterus in every siren’s scream. “You are free to decline any treatments”, they say to me. But between white coats I hear: “Bring the big harpoon! This one resists!”
When it happens to you, meet me where the sea tucks in the shore like a salty sheet. Bring your sisters—wrinkly and smooth—past tidepools brimming with filigree foam and pink anemone-mouths opened in songs of protest. Bring your knife-to-womb narratives— from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Together, we’ll weave kelp into our long hairs, inhale Yemanja’s pearly breath, grow the barnacle-armor of retold myths before their versions turn to stone. And though fishermen will sling their nets at us hollering: Sorcery! Sirens! Sin! (Complete with hand gestures meant to alarm), we’ll break loose, imbibe the goddess, and outswim the harpoons. Until we change the storyline. Until we restore the natural landscapes. Until we fill the hollow in our world where the Feminine is being cut out.
Katarina Xóchitl Vargas
Katarina Xóchitl Vargas was raised in Mexico City. She and her family moved to San Diego when she was 13, where she began composing poems to process alienation. A dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, today she lives on the east coast where— prompted by her father’s death—she’s begun to write poetry again and is working on her first chapbook. Her poetry first appeared in Somos en escrito. You may reach her via e-mail: Tonantzin108@yahoo.com