PRAYER TO MEXICO CITY 2016
KARLA CORDERO
Explosions ripped through a fireworks market north of Mexico City on Tuesday, killing at least 35 people. December 20, 2016
I see the purpose now:
for smoke/ how it billows black cloud/ to signal to god/ how sometimes god don’t know/ the angel intake/or body count/ or unknown count/ or how violent breath can leave/ the body/ to rename a body/ death toll/ civilian/ do we call this fate?/ mom would say: si dios quiere/ & I grew up knowing flame/ how church too burns/ to sweet smelling smoke/ that thurible of incense & charcoal/ we call offering/ to know wick & flame/ de veladoras/ a saint’s glow as prayer/ in Mexico 35 somebodies were crucible/ to sainthood at the hands of what makes fire & smoke/ a gorgeous couple/ a celebrated dance/ how quick a market becomes graveyard/ & a family searches out a loved one’s shoe/ or bone/ as the earth shook/ as the wood charred/ as the brick fell/ & the plastic melted/ & one man told CNN en Español we have called/ the ambulance/ the red cross/ no one knows anything/ & the smoke shadows itself/ into a church/ I see now/ all their soot covered faces/ each lighting a candle/ & offering sky/ all that smoke smolders
for smoke/ how it billows black cloud/ to signal to god/ how sometimes god don’t know/ the angel intake/or body count/ or unknown count/ or how violent breath can leave/ the body/ to rename a body/ death toll/ civilian/ do we call this fate?/ mom would say: si dios quiere/ & I grew up knowing flame/ how church too burns/ to sweet smelling smoke/ that thurible of incense & charcoal/ we call offering/ to know wick & flame/ de veladoras/ a saint’s glow as prayer/ in Mexico 35 somebodies were crucible/ to sainthood at the hands of what makes fire & smoke/ a gorgeous couple/ a celebrated dance/ how quick a market becomes graveyard/ & a family searches out a loved one’s shoe/ or bone/ as the earth shook/ as the wood charred/ as the brick fell/ & the plastic melted/ & one man told CNN en Español we have called/ the ambulance/ the red cross/ no one knows anything/ & the smoke shadows itself/ into a church/ I see now/ all their soot covered faces/ each lighting a candle/ & offering sky/ all that smoke smolders
THE TIME MOM GAVE ME THE CHANCLA FOR LETTING ANDREW JACKSON ESCAPE OUT THE WINDOW
KARLA CORDERO
It is 12:00pm & we arrive home from Sunday church I am the last person to enter through the door & mom yells cierra la puerta the AC is running which also means she just put in seventy hours of work this week to pay the bills which also means to feel cold is a privilege a ghost visit thanks to mom’s labor of love the desperation to have pan & milk on the table for her daughters one time in the boiling summer of 1999 mom once gave me the chancla for leaving the window open she swore she saw a flock of dollar bills fly out the window & soar through the sky the tip of each green wing printed with the number 20 & on their bellies an image of Andrew Jackson waving farewell & outside they flew & outside the sun burnt each thin paper bird to a crisp before they could find freedom & claim it their own I still know the bruise on my left butt cheek when mom foils the windows to keep the devil out & it was almost as hot then as it is right now but inside the house the house is breathing a cold breath which is to say we have the luxury to know shiver the taste of snow in a place it does not exist
KARLA CORDERO is the recipient of the 2015 Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion fellowship for writers of color (Minneapolis, MN) and editor of SpitJournal, an online literary review for poetry and social justice. Cordero's chapbook, Grasshoppers Before Gods (2016), was published by Dancing Girl Press. Her work has appeared and forthcoming in Tinderbox, Word Riot, Poetry International, The Acentos Review, Toe Good Poetry, among other publications.
