… how I long for our days of running
watching the length of your sinewy strides
stretch wide and fast along the asphalt
mine yearned to mimic your body
the fat it refused so naturally
your hips and thighs thin and lithe
the rhythm of our deep breaths synchronized
like flickers of fire in our chests
we were glittered glaring candles
holy virgins lit on the sills
at our mother’s windows
you sat so close to me after
hallowed bones
legs brown and gleaming
thighs pressed tightly against mine
your hot skin meant as an offering of comfort
familiar and moist
burning between us
we lifted our t-shirts and laughed at skin
pulled taut over muscle
I filled myself with water
meant to stave off hunger
but how I loved the stretch of your mouth wide-open
around that melting mound of ice cream I refused to eat
your breath heavy with sweetness devouring
nose to nose you watched the lust in my eyes
invited my lips to press
tongue to lap the taste of sugar
lingering on yours
I so high from the running
and so familiar
my body’s
ripping hunger
Today I spoke to my sister
after ten years of being estranged
deep sting in the liquid of the ear
songless and shriveled bird caught behind the teeth
willing burden of cracked linoleum
pressed into bare knees
small body virginal and divine
draped Mary of Denim Overalls
unicorn t-shirt and ribbons pink
strangle the hair
crank of broken toy buzzes to perform
to play that music in my dreams
mist of iridescence arc’ed
over new and forbidden things
the butterflies
a delicate psalm
on our knees
a tiny palm
cupped at my ear
her hushed voice
praying
everything
Jen Yáñez-Alaniz is a Texas-based Chicana poet activist. She is the co-creator of Loving, Grieving, & Surviving /Chicanas Read the Poetry of Healing and co-founder of Welcome: A Poetry Declaration, San Antonio, Texas’ city-wide event presented on World Refugee Day. Her work, Matrilineal Poetics: Toward an Understanding of Corporeality and Identity is featured in Latinas in Hollywood Herstories, and her latest and forthcoming publications are included in The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, Cutthroat: Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, Rogue Agent Journal, the Mom Egg Review, I Sing: The Body, and more.She is working on a poetry collection exploring the repressive denigration of racial, sexual, and personal value in patriarchal religion and society. Based on her perceptions, her poetry utilizes the metaphors, imagery, and symbols of traditional Catholicism and especially reveals hidden oppression and damaging effects of marianismo attitudes commonly passed down through familismo tradition and ideology.
Comments