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  • Cihuacuicatl, or Song of Women
  • Cindy Williams Gutiérrez (bio)

Come, my sisters, let us burst open songs of pleasure.Let us dream a new world with our corollas of word and breath.I, Tlamayollotl, say: This day is for singing. Ohuaya!

Here, on the fragrant earth, the painted books will not abandon us.Our hands and feet will leave us, but not flower and song.Here, in the house of flowers, we will sing like the bell-bird.

Take up the butterfly cocoons and the flute. Strike the tortoise shells.Here is a drum for each of you. One is studded with turquoise,And one is wreathed with the fiery feathers of the quecholli.

What colors will we see when we dance to the jade drum?Will we dance as fast as the tigress with the wind and heat?Will our songs bewitch men to feed us toasted maize?

Or will we surrender together, make our own hearts tremble?Will you unplait my hair? Will I offer you my little mouth?Will we stumble with the drunkenness of delight?

Do you desire it so? Let us make each other tired.Let us spin and spin. We will weave necklaces of fire.This day is for braiding garlands of songs in flamed bloom. [End Page 89]

Cindy Williams Gutiérrez

Cindy Williams Gutiérrez is a multicultural poet-dramatist who collaborates with artists in theater, music, and visual art. Publications include poems and reviews in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Calyx, Crab Orchard Review, Rain Taxi, ZYZZYVA, and forthcoming in Lilith. Productions include three plays, most recently the NEA-funded collaborative work For:Give. She performs her Aztec-styled poems accompanied by Gerardo Calderón of Grupo Condor on pre-Columbian instruments through the Humanities Washington Inquiring Mind series. Other recent collaborations include an exhibition of her work in People, Places, and Perceptions: A Look at Contemporary Northwest Latino Art at the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Washington. Along with an MBA from Wharton and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, Williams Gutiérrez has an MFA from the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast Program with concentrations in ancient Mexican poetics and creative collaboration. [cindy@grito-poetry.com]

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