One hand kneeling to write
and the other beating it back
-- pointless to pour out the feeling of your thigh pressed to mine,
your shoulder pressed through fabric to flesh...
and denim may keep out the wild,
but it doesn't work against you.
Then there's the irony, of course:
seduced by your gentle way -- lulled --
but you came in my dream, and how could I guard against that?
And now I'm telling you everything that I'll deny,
that I desperately want to deny,
and in confessing, giving you the chance to turn away, quick,
to run,
to let us keep innocent memories of a close-call,
a never-was.
But that chance moves away, I think,
and this,
more and more,
begins to loom,
inevitable.
Having you fade out of my life like this,
conversation by lapsed conversation,
call by missed phone call,
date by postponed date,
Has left me with a dull aching I can't relieve.
Neither time spent with friends
Nor time spent alone...
And even alcohol...
While preserving the memories,
warm and clear.
It seems that the flood of emotion we began as has abated---
With my consent and by my compliance worst of all.
It has trickled off to a vague, throbbing nothingness,
Each lonely drop of it coming farther behind the last
Cascading down to a solitary splash that echoes throughout me.
And that image of you that I've carried around with me these last months of my life,
That made me smile at just the thought of you
And marvel at how your beauty moved me,
That made me blush,
That made me flushed with anger and jealousy and lust,
Is disappearing pigment by painful pigment,
Ripping itself from the backdrop of my mind
As from my flesh.
And this subtle vanishing of you,
In its plodding progression virtually unnoticed and unmarked,
Is like slowly starving.
How would I kill you...
Let me count the ways, my moonless one,
My mother, born of your sword,
My lover...I lay with you through the primordial night of my dreams;
Your crimson lips I devour,
Trapped in my savage embrace,
I taste you,
Your delicious blood...
If this not be love, what is?
Through eternity I would chase you, 'til our souls kiss,
The bliss of your death to savor a million ways
Succulent...
Your screams like a lullaby, rocking me to sleep,
Your weeping like the cleansing of rain
But unattainable, unattainable...
So I will be your scourge
I will be the source of such sweet torture
Delighting at the sight of your love's dead reflection in your eyes (those eyes...)
Putting out their flame will be my dying breath
Who could love you more, my heart's desire?
Who could hate you less?
But then there are the nights that I awaken bathed in tears,
from the tenderest of dreams: suckling
your breast like an innocent while you smile your love down on me and croon...
You love to dance.
Anyone could see that,
The joy of it is splashed across your face.
The music begins, that unmistakable sound:
Tejano.
The beat overtakes you.
A mad grito pulls your Mexican blood from deep within your American bones.
You grab my hand with a wide smile, all teeth, and pull me onto the dance floor, into the throng:
"Come dance, come dance."
I smile, too, because my mother, my beautiful mother, has chosen me.
We pause for a moment, confused without convention,
The two of us twins, everyone has said at least once tonight.
Then I tuck by hand into the small of her back and we begin,
My step sliding us into the beat,
My lead moving us along to that music that won't let you rest unless you're in it's hip-swaying stroll.
"Now spin me," she says, but I don't know how, Mom.
So she shows me, crossing under our upraised arms again and again, twirling figure eight's,
figure eight's:
she teaches in the following position.
The night is perfect.
Then slowly,
Slowly,
I see something else wash over her face;
A realization that sneaks up under the heavy beat, under the accordion's wheeze, its rise and fall,
and steals her away.
Her smile, fluid before, loving, hardens
Slowly,
As she comes to:
Mother of the Groom
dancing with her eldest
child
daughter
lesbian
dyke
marimacha
pinche jota desgraciada.
Hundreds of eyes watch.
Even as I guide her, sliding the steps, turning us together perfectly,
Her smile hardens
Slowly
And her grace stales as she stiffens slightly,
Ever so slightly.
The night flows away from me on a river of rum, spinning
like the dancers, and all that's left in my loose embrace is a
cornered animal that has devoured my mother and now
searches for an escape.
Don't you feel the expanse of the world forcing itself between us, dear mother?
Eating out a hollow cavern where only moments before our breasts were united again,
Mine to those from which they were cleaved?
Slowly I pull away.
Then thankfully,
Mercifully,
The song heaves its last breath with a heavy accordion's chord.
The crowd pours us off the floor.
I don't have to look at you, mother, to know that your wide smile is still there,
hardened forever, crystallized, mortified, warm brown sugar in its death throes.
I deliver you to your husband, my father, the King himself.
And the night goes on.
Later,
Later,
After the drink has sufficiently softened him,
And perhaps at your command,
He grabs my hand,
The only man who holds claim to me.
He pulls me onto the floor.
The Father of the Groom dancing with his eldest daughter,
Lesbian no more,
Eclipsed by his masculinity.
And is it just the drink, Dad,
The Crown that is your favorite,
Just the drink that makes you push me into place?
That makes you force my feet to follow yours, red-faced, and spins me too fast, too fast,
so I have to hold on tight,
My wide smile pressed against my face,
My man's hand clinging to your wide shoulder while you wrestle me into place?
Then thankfully,
Mercifully,
The music gives up its ghost.
The dance is done.
The King reclaims his throne,
At his side, his bride, my mother,
As I take my seat,
Dutifully,
Chastised,
The Oedipal son herself,
Consumed by your blindness.
If you have enjoyed Sonia C. Barrera's Poetry, then please be certain to e-mail her at s_barrera[at]hotmail.com and thank her for posting her Work.
Click here for a list of all of Sonia C. Barrera's Stories and Poetry at Sapphic Voices Authoresses.
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