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Éramos varias mujeres/We were several women by Guadalupe Ángela translated into English by Yael Kiken

The following poem was translated from Zarpamos, a selection of
poems by the Oaxacan poet Guadalupe Ángela, translated from Spanish
into English by Yael Kiken. This is the first time this poems has been
translated into English. Rights have been secured to publish this translation.

English Translation
[We were several women]

We were several women
who had built
vessels out of leather
to heed the call.

The fortress
was arranged in a spiral
and that day they opened
the entrance for us.

We began to enter the water.
Some pedaled, others
used sails, propellers, paddles,
others had gathered so much strength
that they were blowing.

We were going towards the center
where waiting for us was
the bird who would hand down
the word which belonged
to each one of us.

We were in a hurry;
we had lost the
scent of land.

Some preferred drowning
before arrival.
We knew the word
would burn our clothing
but still, we did not want
to waste any more time.

We would have to
take the word gingerly
between our palms
even though its texture
would change us.

We’d left behind
all those
who we had helped,
believing we were their caregivers.

Even though I knew of some
who, after receiving
the word, could no longer
maintain balance
and became so dizzy
they vomited.

It was not easy
because before giving us
the word with its beak,
a man with a wheel
sharpened it
and sparks flew
as we heard a sound
that tickled.

By now I was close.
The bird observed
from its tower
how I anchored
my raft and ascended
the first rungs.
The word in its beak
looked like a yellow flower
and it came to me.

Original
[Éramos varias mujeres]

Éramos varias mujeres
quienes habíamos construido
las naves de cuero
para acudir al llamado.

. La fortificación
. se había dispuesto en espiral
. y ese día nos abrieron
. la entrada.

. Comenzamos a entrar al agua
. algunas pedaleaban, otras
. llevaban velas, hélices, remos,
. otras tenían tanta fuerza
. acumulada que soplaban.

Íbamos hacia el centro
donde nos esperaba
el ave que nos daría
la palabra que nos pertenecía
a cada una.

. . Teníamos prisa,
. . habíamos perdido
. . el olfato hacía la tierra.

. Algunas prefirieron ahogarse
. antes de llegar
. sabíamos que la palabra
. nos quemaría la ropa,
. pero aun así, no deseábamos
. desperdiciar más tiempo,

. . Habría que tomar
. . con delicadeza
. . la palabra entre las manos
. . aunque nos alterara
. . su textura.

Habíamos dejado atrás
a todos aquellos
a quienes habíamos asistido
creyéndonos enfermeras.

Aunque supe de algunas
que , después de recibir
la palabra no podían mantener el equilibrio
y mareaban hasta el vómito.

No era facil
porque antes de darnos
la palabra con su pico,
un hombre con una rueda
la afilaba y salían chispas
mientras oíamos un sonido
que cosquilleaba.

Ya estaba cerca
El ave observo
Desde su torre
Como anclaba
Mi balsa y subia yo
Los primeros peldaños
La palabra en su pico
Parecía flor amarilla
Y venia.

author of poem:
Guadalupe Ángela (1969-2020) was a prolific writer and beloved teacher from Oaxaca, Mexico. Her work is part of the anthologies Tres ventanas a la literatura oaxaqueña actual (2005), Oaxaca: Siete poetas (2006), and Anuario de poesía. Her work is anthologized in Zarpamos, which has been translated into Italian and German. Ángela was an integral part of the robust literary community in Oaxaca, organizing frequent readings and workshops.

translator of poem into English:
Yael Kiken is a professor and poetry translator who has studied literatureat the University of Michigan and Georgetown University and has taught writing in a wide range of settings, including DC and Michigan correctional facilities, DCPS elementary schools, and international classrooms in Honduras and Oaxaca. She currently teaches writing at Howard University and lives in Washington, D.C.

Featured image “Oaxacan wood carvings. Visitor Center art show, May 30, 2015.” Uploaded by Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area to be licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Three Poems by Brittany Morgan

Ode to Mama’s Mac and Cheese

A recipe passed down
from her Mama
when she was twenty-four
and hungry.

Some kind of tomatoes,
whatever noodles you can find,
and any cheese you have around.

That mac and cheese
fed us all
when pantry shelves
were bare—
when empty pockets
echoed louder
than the rumbles
in our stomachs.

Prayer
answered—

testament
to mouths
finally fed

History

I.
Stories
tell us we’re invincible;
history
reminds us all we’re not.

II.
My people—
mountain people—
work stories into this clay
and weave our memory
into this
hazy Appalachian horizon.

III.
The onion roots
my granddaddy plants
each and every season;
the muddied boots he’d wear,
day after day working
that field—this is what history
will remember about people like him.

IV.
Remember us all
for the songs we sing—all string,
all spirit; remember us all
for everything we’ve given;
everything we’ve yet to give.

Twenty-Nine, And Still

I.

Twenty-eight years spent living
as ghost-child, turned teen, turning
phantom-limb—longing for alignment, for all
my nerve-endings live-wiring themselves to something
greater than the sum
of all my hollowed parts.

II.
Twenty-nine, and still
haunted—still shrugging off past selves. The old,
scratchy, worn winter coats never fitting
just right, just barely
keeping that frost-bitten bitterness outside
my cold, clumsy reach.

III.
And I’m still waiting, witness to all
versions this serendipitous soul holds
to its horizon. But I am getting tired.

IV.
There’s only so much
hallelujah left
in this softening marrow.

Brittany Morgan is a poet and writer who earned her BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Longwood University in 2020, and her MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2023. She is also a poetry editor for Heartwood Literary Magazine and is currently at work on several writing projects.

Featured image “Appalachian mountans” by Masterman242 to be licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Last Supper in Baltimore by Brigittine French

Last Supper in Baltimore


An impressive murder of crows
does not make
national headlines
nor does the murder of young Tai
Black, trans, beautiful
in an alley just down Lafayette

above a brick church locked during
the day neighbor ravens
decry the slaying
perched on rusty lampposts
calmly blanketing
in excrement vehicles
of good people praying inside

Who will emerge from the sermon
to wash the feet of trees
that shelter ravens?
their sinewy tendons
weave into uneven concrete
like floating tendrils of
the dead nurse’s locks
she wanted heal the sick

but the dead do not rise
only the dirty sidewalk
and discerning corvids at dawn

Brigittine French is a writer and teacher who divides her time between Baltimore and Iowa City. She is author of three books (UArizona Press 2010; Routledge 2018; Rutgers U Press 2020) and her work has appeared in Welter, Ms.com, Salon.com, and Lyrical Iowa.

Featured image in this post is, “Crow with Our Lady of the sacred Heart Church, Randwick, Sydney” by Sardaka, licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Five Poems by Donna Denizé

Gourd

In a sideboard shuttered away, I find it.
Shake it.
let it fill my palm—
this brown surface
smooth and firm.
Who held it,
carried it to this shore?
I shake it,
beads rattle, as I stand
hoping to hear voices— Ayiti—
voices lilting
from a land I long to know
(whispers, secrets)
to know how I am moored to them.
And who placed
this gourd
in the chest of a drafty dining room
on Cape Cod beneath old books,
recipes for this home,
a bed and breakfast
listed once
in The Green Book?
O Gourd—
abandoned, buried
in mahogany wood— chest
of darker shade, I wait
—trusting I can live somewhere
in between yearning,
to settle, at last,
in one skin—here
Ayiti— Ayiti— Ayiti…
people from Senegal, Guinea,
Sierra Leone, Angola, songs,
once distant, now one
I shake it,
search for what has been
inside and now is summoned
summoned in sound.

The Collector
To M. Clement Denizé, grandfather


In the one photograph I have
you sit composed, staring calmly
into a camera lens, looking almost
almost as though you would or could speak.

A handlebar moustache frames your face—
from your black jacket, black bow tie, white shirt
you were, perhaps, a government “official”?
And I surmise— how would you see me
— half Haitian, half American.

I’m a collector of remains
of remains locked in stillness, dreams,
lost stories thriving in silence.
Collector of vanishing days, nights,
gathering salt and sounds
vibrations on the eardrum,
moving over one membrane, thin
as parchment or the skin of a drum.

Frozen as a clock that never moves
your gaze and smile—
leave me seeking
wondering what happened
before silver
before sugar
before slaves
before rum
before you, grandfather, find your way
to a lane that leads to the lycée
where your body
is found, a bullet behind
the ear.
Did your wife feel absence before
someone shut your eyes. Did she feel
life beneath this life.

Now I sit with only a photo,
feel your presence in absence.
And, I suspect, no one but me
— your legacy—
will remember. So, was it luck—me
finding this— your face
where all that’s left
of you
epicenter of story,
is one solitary image…

What’s left
I will collect.

Touch
For Marie Elliott
I.
Seventy years of remnants. In a sideboard
with tarnished silver, place mats, recipes
of desserts and meats torn from newspapers.
Memories. I find the small book, its pages, frayed
and yellowed, where handwritten notes,
lists— catch me off guard—
ailments, treatments,
equipment needed—everything
how to, when to, where to:
nasal feeding,
gastric aspiration,
vaginal exam,
evening operations.
How to report to the head nurse,
or attending physician.
How to clean, discharge patients
who to call,
where to send tests
how to …
The little book, its front and back cover lost,
has history, purpose: do no harm.
A log not about machines, but hands
showing how much care
a body needs to heal,
a spirit to rest.
Not machines— hands
on something, on someone.

II.
when segregation is law

The nurse buys the three-story house at auction—
when segregation is law—
and the State Department of Health calls
asks the nurse to take just one elderly, black
and then calls again, to say
If you have one patient, will you take two?
and so on, until the house is full,
is doing well, so well, (her family on one floor,
patients on another)
the nurse hires a cook, extra help. But
after the office learns
social security checks still go out,
after the office sees payments,
payments for aging, vulnerable
weak-bodied blacks—are too big,
after all is well, a woman
in the office of health calls the nurse, says
What are you doing? We send them there to die,
and you keep them living?

A nurse—after all— knows
to care for the unwanted,
knows do not deny
life. Keep folks living—
do more more
than do no harm.
I stand still, hold it like a book of prayer—
I did not know. This small book,
its notes, treatments, procedures again gives life.
Solace opens, roots me in place.
Notes, handwritten,
show how to heal, grow old
how to touch and touch another.

VISITING MIMMI, EYES ON THE SPARROW

95 years old and blind by then Mimmi, my grandmother’s mother, was in a nursing home when we’d visit her. We’d announce ourselves as we entered the room. Our ritual never differed. Mimmi would repeat our names, as if to assure herself or us that she could see us, know us, still, or perhaps it was relief she’d not been forgotten among strangers. However it was, she’d give the same greeting, “Is that my Marie?” and gram would answer, “Yes, it’s Marie, William, and Donna, here.” And Mimmi’s reply, familiar, “Oh, I knew you’d come; let me touch your face so I can see you.” Reverently, one by one, we’d each move forward like churchgoers going for blessings. She’d place her hands on each forehead, then open her fingers like fans, and run gently downward, caressing each cheek. When she’d reached a chin, she would begin to sing, “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” her favorite hymn. When done, we’d sit and tell her how every family member was doing, but never who died, I surmise, because we didn’t want to sadden her, remind her that she too was close, closer to death, didn’t want to remind her of that. (Such a short time for visits). And we did not want to call to memory ancestors who’d passed on unnamed, unknown. In our last visit before Mimmi passed, gram said, “Don’t tell her Mr. Riggs, (her second husband) had passed last week.” I promise to say nothing. I can be trusted, though only ten.

We entered her room in the home. Mimmi was seated on the side of her bed, calm, focused. She’d heard us before we announced ourselves, and said, Is that my Marie? Gram answered, Yes, it’s Marie, William, and Donna. We’re here. She asked for her ritual of touching faces, but did not sing this time:You know, Fred died a few days ago, and he visited me last night. We went up into the clouds and we danced and danced. I had such a good time. He asked me if I’d like to go with him, and I said no, but next time, I think I’ll go because we had such a good time.

I looked at my grandmother’s face. It said, be silent, as though Mimmi had said nothing supernatural, strange. One by one, gram told Mimmi about the family, never saying who else had died. When it was time, time to leave, Mimmie sang out joyfully, “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” She died the next week. We never mentioned our last visit. We simply cleaned out her apartment. And these, the only remnants of love I recall, not the place or space.

bike, wind, canal flow

(Back then wedid notknow what we did. not know).

Cape Cod. Me, a girl of nine or ten,
tomgirl.   Cape Cod
not Cap Haitian— tomgirl
roving the land, riding the bike
to the beach the store the pier.

That girl half-Cape, half Haitian
stands on the pier staring in waters below.
Under the pier, grey and wood-worn,
a hen, ducklings in tow, glides
past pilings covered by barnacles, ashen white.
Gathering minnows winding in and out of seaweed—
wispy, green filaments that rise and fall with waves.
Dull-eyed gulls stare into air. Girl hair:
two kinky braids
tight with Dixie Peach.

Here, no steely blue eyes
peer in. The ride
against only wind
the glimpse only
water’s brisk flow.

Pass lobster pots, ropes, weathered
ropes ashen and braided, frayed and green
green with seaweed and salt. Traps rest on rocks—
single, and alone—traps out of water,
out of place. Peddle past rocks, seagulls,
lonesome cries. Raw North winds
press against brown skin, skin so thin
a girl might rise, rise up, out of body
a fledging flailing, wildly flailing.

What did I know of Toussaint,
Wampanoags,
wars on these shores,
Paul Cuffee,
Cape Verde, or Portugal?
(Back then wedid notknow what we did . not know).
I know
salt water, lilacs, grapes, wild berries.
Senses— spirit craving Spirit.
Back then—only single
alone
the bike
the wind
canal’s brisk flow.

Donna Denizé is Haitian American. Her poems appear in “Gargoyle,” “Provincetown Arts,” “Innisfree Journal of Poetry,” and a new anthology entitled From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s
Tender Buttons Volume II (Food). Her essays appear in Sonnets of the American, The Folger Guides to Teaching Hamlet // Macbeth // Romeo and Juliet // Othello and English Journal.
She has a Master of Arts from Howard University, and a Master of Fine Arts from Pacific University.

Featured image “His and Hers Vintage Schwinn Touring Bicycles” by Wayne Wilkinson and uploaded by Ser Amantio di Nicolao to be licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Five Poems by Craig Edward Flaherty

Big Sky

Big sky, how you fill
with hope mid-ocean
mid-prairie, mid-uplands.
Mountain tops recall
ferocious winds worthy
of note.

They sing the one note
in the roof rack, the one
whistled tree downed
in clover leaf overpass
last tumbles of median
debris on shoulders.

At sunset, grey, wind
jammed clouds yellow
at the furthur edge
distant speckles called
to the wall of day’s end.
An amassed scramble
of cumulus conflagrate
at the horizon.

The earth’s mechanic
makes adjustments
seals hope in the breathless
rush that tomorrow will
break whisked again – fresh.

Dreams of Lyra Glockenspiel
Dream #070

Lyra Glockenspiel wears
an ankle length white
peignoir that sways
in the breeze of the rooftop
patio. She is also taking
pictures of herself
from a chair as she tosses
her long hair off her shoulder.

A large mirror stands next
to the chair. The mirror reflects
Lyra as she was when she
was thirteen.

Her reflection steps out of
the mirror and takes flight.

The young Lyra gently slips
into the sky and sails over
the town, the airport,
the river to the hills filled
with wild horses. She laughs.
She smiles as she rides
one of the horses. She sees
blood on her gown. Her face
breaks into a wide grin.

Dream #071

Lyra’s skin tightens over her small boned frame
tightens in the spring sun that bloats the field/
meadow of buttercups who whisper off melodies
in soft breezes that bloat/swell her heart.

In the small of her slender back, as she gravitates/
turns into high noon, she warms in dark places
on the run of herself. This is a dream she reminds
herself, a dream from my adolescence. The acorn
colored horse wades the rippling yellow flowers
up to her quilt. The horse drops his head
to nuzzle into the umbrella of Lyra’s breath.
He nudges her cheek.

She rises/swings onto his warm back. The horse trots
as she straddles until trespassing the dark wood
where the fresh branch tips rove softly at her passing.
The woods break at the canyon’s edge where her body
dissolves into the horse. From within her arms
stretch out through the hide becoming wings/racks
of feather stacked into the shafts of air rising from
the canyon’s deep. Lyra and the horse lift in the draft.
Weightless, she awakes.

Dream #701

The Widow Lyra Glockenspiel,

Bathed in Debussy,
scrubbed in Ducoudray,
showered by dreams.
The short mallet strikes.
Feathers in my uniform
cap and hers at the back
of the marching band.
Flags flutter.

A flatbed trailer float before;
Legion of Veterans behind,
“y’er left……y’er left…..
y’er left, right, left”
up the hill into the sun.
Solo we dance the light beams.
My right arm around her waist.
Her gold tassels shimmy.
Her notes sparkle in the outdoor cafe.

Magic wands bright the end of the bar,
a flashing model of La Tour Eiffel.
She nuzzles into my side.
She chortles,
the Widow Layra Glockenspiel.

Forever rattling on the cob stones,
pushcarts of flowers.

Dream #710

TV Show: Community Auditions
Star of the day, who will it be?
The ice cream truck speakers
shake with the TV show jingle.
Lyra Glockenspiel’s balcony
curtains sway.
Two dogs chomp the edges
of a four by seven foot Foamcore
check for $20,000.00.
The TV crew, a dozen dancers
and a rotund suited man with
black lacquered hair mill the front
yard licking orange popsicles.

A whipped cream wind pulls Lyra
behind the Rose of Sharon bush.
The Mexican dress dances to:
Star of the day, who will it be?

Lyra Glockenspiel becomes
the Rose of Sharon opening
with the sun closing with
the moon.

Craig Edward Flaherty; Grandfather trained at Andover, Everett High, Boston University and Eden Seminary. Lifelong church musician. Published poet in all the joys of discovery.

Featured image “U S Marines and Sailors attend Finnish Swedish Heritage Day Parade” in this post is by Sgt. Makayla Elizalde, and released by the United States Marine Corpe to be licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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