By: Marcy Rae Henry
i’m writing her a poem about an alchemical tale
i was told in Egypt a scarab pushes
bolitas de mierda down the road
shitballs grow
the way snow sticks to snow
when the beetle has dealt with enough shit
midas-colored flies emerge and flit
away forgetting where they came from
to ward off maldiciones i’ll give her a blue-green scarab
that sat in my pocket while my body
floated in the Dead Sea the way a sprig floats in oil
***
cuando era joven people in charge talked
about una llamada de dios
and i’d lie on my side
as coyotes circled closer to the moonbright barrier
between sagebrush and asphalt
noting i had not been called
one nochebuena the first man flipped me upside down
while tree lights glowed like planets
he pounded on my back until a peppermint candy
lodged in my throat popped out
and then the night was good
***
pain is personal
the weight of loving
and being beloved
the way brujería is more personal than soap
amulets and sage
repetition is what keeps us together
pero ella no se nota
i’ve always had something stuck in my throat
Marcy Rae Henry is a Latina born and raised in Mexican-America/The Borderlands. She has lived in Spain, India and Nepal and once rode a motorcycle through the Middle East. Her writing and visual art appear in Hobart, Newcity, Thimble Literary Magazine, New Mexico Review and The Wild Word, among others. Her writing has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Ms. M.R. Henry is working on a collection of poems and two novellas. She is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Fine Arts at Harold Washington College Chicago.
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