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  • Maguey, and: Languaging, and: Tortilla Bones
  • Claire Joysmith (bio)

Maguey

The mother stands tall now yellow with agethe sun’s beat on her browthe fresh green gifted to little ones stillclinging and she compliesfor she’s in no hurry to shed themonto tezcal and pebble ground.

There are a hundred tiny agavesand next time the wind unfolds itssingular song with decided forcethey each will topple to kissthe ground and will need tosurvive the sun, the wind, the droughtgrow gratitude underthe slightest rain softeningthe earth’s lips to offerthem inches their homemay be made of.

Alone, they will die or growaccording to fate not their ownand emulate their mother’samplitude in earth and stonesurrender to a bowl of groundand root the same temperedjoy in their cells astheir mother’s carcassbeds their stemming growth.

Then they will reach into the skyspread out their bare greenarms for dropletsof rain and grace.

Languaging

English is usually the turf on which we meet.In Spanish we’re off on an adventure.We roam on English sentences.Yours vaguely Texas-tinged.Mine overgrown with weeds from everyculture my feet have become damp with.And so we tiptoe into Spanish greenshidden from our own views. [End Page 181]

Tortilla Bones

He has true tortilla bonessomeone once saidstrength structuredcon maíz del buenopuro calciopor eso aguanta tanto

Yes, his face Olmec, eyesmaybe Mayan, moorishmemories and a tinge of whitefrom Spanish ancestros.

A conquistador stancecomo espiga de trigochocolate con lecheand a hazel gaze.

Spirals of time flowingthrough each vein likesweet and salt watermerging once theyreach the ocean: whatboundaries can be drawn?

Blood knows no bordersstreams in renewalevery moment.

Pain hides in cellsthat don’t flake off.

Every cell quietin its transformation. [End Page 182]

Claire Joysmith
México
Claire Joysmith

Joysmith, Claire was born in Mexico of migrant parents, raised trilingually/quatriculturally, and Professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM),. She focuses on Chicana, Latina and Mexicana literature and culture, transborder-translation issues, self-narratives and poetry. She has published in Signs; Chicana Feminisms; FIAR; Debate feminista; Voices of Mexico, a collective introduction to Anzaldúa’s Borderlands and others. She is editor of Las formas de nuestras voces: Chicana and Mexicana Writers in Mexico; Cantar de espejos. Poesía testimonial chicana de mujeres; and One Wound for Another/Una herida por otra, Speaking desde las heridas. Her poetry and memoirs have appeared in Voices Without Borders, in both vols. I & II (2009 National Best Book Award for Literature-Anthology); Literal; Raven Chronicles; Bluestaye; Blanco Movil; La repúbica en voz de sus poetas; Dondepalabra; CantaLetras, and among others. She enjoys translating (Sofía: Poems; Cantar de espejos; Borderlands). Joysmith was awarded the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz medal in 2013.

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