When the Wiry Voiced Veterana Writer Dies by Anel I. Flores
When the Wiry Voiced Veterana Writer Dies by Anel I. Flores
a poem honoring Sandra Cisneros
Using the tradition of the Mexican Calavera poem, I’m writing
a semi serious/satirical poem about Sandra Cisneros; she is the
most famous Latina author and also banned. What does that
mean for all of us who have continued in her legacy or given the
opportunity because of the paths she paved
when the wiry voice veterana writer dies we will slash
flowers from garden beds without reserve
pink baby’s breath bluebonnets rain lilies firewheels in
furry and desolation
fists of floresitas framed around altares assembled through
the latine section of our libraries
kitchen lookout windows car dashboards desk drawers
classroom bulletin boards
pull pages of her pen ink from salvaged signed books
tossed back back back in the back
of our public school district storage facility behind the
asshat’s who banned hers
find flyers from readings tattered in corners
81we saved of a dead celebrity whom we doted on dutifully
with too many eyes on her to breath be eat leave love lose
or sleep
she used to say
in the wonderings in the words under too many beers
between friends
recounting the pitch lessons the mexican dresses the
eyebrows across the workshop table
the sonorous laughter she etched into our archetype
endearing our cousins as criminals
clouds shaped as candy sweet savage lovers and lustful
nights between gay boys
tacones tacos a cacophony where conjunto flamenco and
coca-cola meet between stanzas
glass globos across the dirt boarded windows waiting for a
star to fall
our name to sound like silver
we forgot how we rolled our eyes bitter waiting wondering
when we’d get on the list
when our words would too become the soundtrack of our
generation our gente our girls our
grandmothers
a glass vase stuffed with cempazuchitl the picture you
finally took with her after waiting in a threehour line
the madonna of chicana writing they said
we pitching poems map out a social media monologue
sonorous with words like waiting solemn surveillance
saying our mentor poeta frenemy lover
supposedly somehow like the supernatural it was a
spectacle
she brought out the mexican house in us
like a canon
like a drunk sky
Ometeotl en el Cielo: Chavela Vargas, original artwork, Oil on
Canvas by Anel I. Flores
Ometeotl en el Cielo: Gloria Anzaldua, original artwork, Oil on
Canvas by Anel I. Flo