The heart
a cruel
white circle—
pure Bengali.
Here are the knees
you claim are yours—
devout Moroccans.
The breasts
to your surprise,
Gauguin’s Papeete.
Pale moon of belly—
Andalusian!
The hands—
twin comedies
from Pago Pago.
The eyes—
bituminous
Tierra del Fuego.
Odd womb.
Embalmed.
Quintana Roo.
Amé, Amo, Amaré
i
What you said was
I do not love you.
Simply.
Not once.
Not ever.
Not now.
Never.
Then you took me
home with you
because it was time
to undress me.
There was a moon.
All the numb ride there
it followed me
and grinned.
There was the house.
Same as before.
Same rattle of the door.
Same sigh of burgundy.
You took me in.
Just like the other nights.
Same tug. Same urgency.
Made love,
just as a lover does.
Kissed me.
ii
I don’t remember that night.
That is, I don’t remember
the words you used precisely.
I’m not sure who
asked and who answered.
Whether I shut
my eyes or furled
I don’t know.
Only that gossip moon
already mentioned—
wisecracking, whispering.
Here is the little flag of news
that lodged itself into the brain.
How the truth finally came.
Isn’t it funny?
When you tug me beside you
I dissolve like a ribbon of snow.
And you tell me.
The words clearer than ether,
purer than poem.
A wife, a wife, a wife.
The woman you love and who loves you.
All your life.
iii
Christ! Don’t act
as if you didn’t know—
under your breath.
Years later over coffee one day
you’ll confess—What went on
in your head that night
to make you so strange.
Because I’ve folded myself up
like a bird. I’ve folded
one wing across one breast,
the other, across the heart.
Stiff as jute. Mute as an Egyptian.
There…
I’ve ruined the evening.
I’ve ruined everything.
I put my stockings on.
My green green dress.
(Funny I remember that detail—
the green green dress.)
And worse,
you have to take me home.
The long cold drive.
The big black car.
The wide front seat.
You sitting far at the other side
like a man at the wrong
end of a telescope.
The moon winks.
I’m a simp I think.
But I’m wrong.
I know what I am.
Men Asleep
I have known those who sleep like a Ulysses
beautiful in their 20-year weariness.
And those who would drown
themselves each night like lost sons.
And those who could not let go of
the leather loops of their love,
And those who go room into room into room,
who shut themselves like doors,
who would not let me in.
New Year’s Eve
I saw your wife tonight.
No Athena. No Medea.
No Adelita nor Malintzín.
From what I could observe
she is a woman risen from a rib
like any other—
two eyes, two breasts, one uterus.
She did not arrive
wearing raiments of gold
on a barge from the Nubian Nile.
No Botticelli pearl is she
riding the crest of a wave
on a pretty half shell.
She did not trophy
serpents in each upraised fist
mighty as a priestess.
She neither graced her
walk with flowered skirts
and balanced basket,
nor stand Carmenesque,
hands on hips, and thrust
her haughty laughter out.
She did not sling
a rifle upon her back,
nor a child across her breasts.
Fire did not issue from her gaze
and no music from her lips.
Her hands were clean.
Her forehead modest, serene.
How did I fail to understand?
A female, like any common female.
For a common male.
14 de julio
Today, catorce de julio,
a man kissed a woman in the rain.
On the corner of Independencia y Cinco de Mayo.
A man kissed a woman.
Because it is Friday.
Because no one has to go to work tomorrow.
Because, in direct opposition to Church and State,
a man kissed a woman
oblivious to the consequence of sorrow.
A man kisses a woman unashamed,
within a universe of two I’m certain.
Beside the sea of taxicabs on Cinco de Mayo.
In front of an open-air statue.
On an intersection busy with tourists and children.
Every day little miracles like this occur.
A man kisses a woman in the rain
and I am envious of that simple affirmation.
I who timidly took and timidly gave—
We of the half-dark who were unbrave.
Tantas Cosas Asustan, Tantas
Tantas cosas asustan. Tantas.
Los muertos y los vivos.
Lo que la oscuridad no nos permite ver
y lo que nos permite.
Pasos sobre un patio
tanto como el silencio.
Y cosas simples.
Aritmética. La renta.
El infinito también asusta.
Números. El cielo.
Dioses que siempre fueron y serán.
La inmortalidad.
¿Cuál es peor?
Estar siempre sola,
o estar con alguien para siempre.
Y el finito aterroriza.
Nuestras vidas por ejemplo.
El amor asusta.
Igual la luna y los generales.
Y pesan mucho.
No uno por uno.
Pero todos juntos.
Como una lata de canicas.
La felicidad, al contrario,
es otro asunto.
Tiene que ver con papalotes.
Brooks Permissions: Four lines from “A Song in the Front Yard.” Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.
Harvard University Press: Excerpt from “After great pain a formal feeling comes” from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 193
5, 1937, 1942, by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965, by Mary L. Hampson.
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Every year, Ceyala “Lala” Reyes’ family—aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala’s six older brothers—packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drives from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother’s house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother’s life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love.
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Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous—it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become.
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VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES
Available wherever books are sold.
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