EVEN NOW
ALANA DE HINOJOSA
There,
just beyond the edge of the sofa
is a deluge & child,
the many freckled hands of a willow
peopling its unruly reflection,
the stars & fireflies confusing each other.
I love this other light
of night & worldly angels
spilling quickly into me. I love the child,
now a man. I love the man, now
a bat. I love the bat, now
a lantern. I love this lantern, now
a woman wearing a tattered porkpie hat
shadowing their egret faces. &
I love the river
that carries that heap of bones, blood & dust
refusing what's become of us,
mapping out, urgently
a different route,
a manuscript — yeah,
of yucca & adobe
faces assembling a long memory
somewhere
between
El Paso & Juarez
in the full silhouette
of a pomegranate tree.
just beyond the edge of the sofa
is a deluge & child,
the many freckled hands of a willow
peopling its unruly reflection,
the stars & fireflies confusing each other.
I love this other light
of night & worldly angels
spilling quickly into me. I love the child,
now a man. I love the man, now
a bat. I love the bat, now
a lantern. I love this lantern, now
a woman wearing a tattered porkpie hat
shadowing their egret faces. &
I love the river
that carries that heap of bones, blood & dust
refusing what's become of us,
mapping out, urgently
a different route,
a manuscript — yeah,
of yucca & adobe
faces assembling a long memory
somewhere
between
El Paso & Juarez
in the full silhouette
of a pomegranate tree.
ALANA DE HINOJOSA is a poet pursing a dissertation in the César E Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA. Her dissertation is concerned with histories of displacement, dispossession, diaspora, loss, return, and what these sometimes have to do with rivers, particularly the Río Grande. Her poetry has been published in Huizache, Duende, The Acentos Review, Four Chambers, and is forthcoming in The Blue Mesa Review. She is a Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Las Dos Brujas, and Hampshire College alum. She was raised in Davis, California.