Mi Mama. Mi Pelo. by Marissa Phillips Mama, I still struggle to grasp our native tongue Pero, I want to say gracias For the thankless job you toiled at At a time when I hated myself Y mi pelo -- When you fell in love with papa – his dark skin, coarse hair Did you ever consider the result? You weren’t ready for these curls, this frizz You didn’t quite understand The social currency of straight hair In a white rural school Because you love me You figured they would too -- First, we tried to contain it Hair ties as restraints seemed like a good idea But only brought me attention The biggest ponytail that school had ever seen “Fluffy” the boy called me, with a smile Deemed me the class mascot, as if it were an honor -- Next, we tried to hide it Sulfuric smell filling the room as chemicals killed my curls Made my hair break off Burned my scalp But I was beautiful For a few months every year I was almost beautiful -- Remember how mad I’d get when you couldn’t do my hair right? Right was limp and lifeless My hair always too big, too full of life I’d wish boys would say “Wow, you take up so little space” Even your best attempts left tiny curls at my scalp Like dirt I could never wash off -- My hair is different now It’s lived a thousand lives My curls are bent, misshapen Gnarled by decades of discontent Pero, I’ve come to accept them Even embrace what they are A reminder that, against her better judgement Mama tried her best To make me feel beautiful Despite always knowing You cannot fix lo que ya es hermoso ![]() Marissa Phillips is a Puerto Rican writer and artist living in Harrisburg, PA. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University.
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“Tejanos” and “Jalapeño Smoke”by Reynaldo George Hinojosa Jr. Tejanos the breadth of my blood spans the rio grande, tunneling every root into earth laid track, veins of cartesian slanted monasteries praying for safe keeping and return. all love’s angles need me dry as a bridge across centuries drifting, drifting along tributaries, my eyes lifting border weight sunk into lines like dams. god dammed me turn and bound sand coffin lullabies shrinking miles bordering my measured body. i crenellate, i bridge too far, moated, i solemnly melt harbors into ice. brandished masks, graphite flares, long-speared songs slit cascading tracks i can no longer see. beneath coffins, i river along drifting castles, monuments laid against footprints and obelisks turned fountains. too many feet leave dirt to consume my blood, longing to be a mother for every lost child stuck in the mouth of my soiled lands, softened under moonlight perils. & my silver edged swards gulp air, grip for supple bodies in side shore flotillas, clambering shoulders for another damp- pressed lodged throat stuck from the same people split down centuries long edges; umbra against moonlight, shaded dark graphite bursts of genetic lacuna. arbitrary lacunae bodies speak silence, a generation of silence, no longer listening to wardens warranting god damned word-spills flooding me, my river, my heart soaked in tragedy, soaked in sores weeping my river, my name, my sense of belonging. my body is split in imaginary sequence, sequins of words cleared out by spectacle harvesters and mage icons. harvest my image, my name, my soil forgotten to cowboys, forget vaqueros, lassoed my last memory buried in the sand, in the clay, in oil stuck in the throat of nations. & image iconoclasts barrel for barrel, priced, stocked, laminated to touch, touch towered drill rigs silting my soil, my violent soil sold and sunk beneath static statues and markers covered with moss, for- gotten and left to wonder. i was born here hundreds of years ago, but can’t remember why. when can i reduce the root to a seed? of all the memories i carry across my body, i recall mesquite bean pods indifferently, discarding yellow-tanned honey as nothing more than a forgotten name. cabeza de pozo is only a myth to my hands, to my lungs, my hands no longer carry generations of silence, my body is already filled. i’ve eaten my share, drank the rio grande, subsumed what is left, whispers still fill my cup—branch from the river, branch from my throat, branch the sky, branched in solitude separate stilled and stolen loose soil saved for savagery. i am witness to its reflection still standing in tides grown from my blood. my blood is a memory i sift through, speaking its name along the camino real. upwards, norteño, ever upwards to heaven’s song: sol, my sol, my soil, my name buried deep within the soil. Jalapeño Smoke my mother burns jalapeños on the comal choking me with centuries long memories its sharp-sticks saturate the air like a mist body full, expanding corners in my lips and nostrils the piercing plates lap up my tongue feeding me memorials of earth verde encerrado en una coma hooked, lined like mexico jealous of my mouth that still speaks its blister berry song lulls fire torched-heart and fireworked i remember the dreary fumes steeling my name cutting through my throat capturing my voice alive carving out the well’s swollen gland speaking, speaking the spanish name el lamento, razed buds steamed in effigy torched-bust hammer-filled balloons pyrrhic tastes, burn-swelled sweat the arch of its name sinks like a submarine rises like a whale splashes long rivers we call home el lamento, for loose soil it levels me in ancient serenity fusing its long root in my veins mi raza es contigo, cuaresmeño, fat with liquid blister circular spirit in the house that never leaves me troubadour of the flamed-tongued vineyard dragging me to the root hardened es posible con suave la muerte es tu clave to the scorched light burn-scarred across the shipless sail heart-driven and anchored in me mirrored to the centuries long current buried in the light of my mother’s cooking smoke-washed dream of my north star searing every word for home the earth still recognizes me its fruits still hold my name ![]() Reynaldo George Hinojosa Jr. is a Tejano-born writer and musician. He acquired his MFA in Creative Writing and Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts from the University of Texas at El Paso, and an Associate’s in Music from San Antonio College. Since arriving in Michigan, Reynaldo helped build, and currently helps run, the bookstore cooperative Book Suey. He is a 2022-2024 Lead Teaching Artist Fellow with Inside Out Literary Arts. He lives with his son, partner, and two cats in Hamtramck. Excerpts from Z is for Zapatazo |
Two recent poems by René have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and one other for the Best of the Net competitions for 2020. | Born in San Antonio, he now lives in New York City, a noted Chicano poet and multi-talented musician. He is the product of a legacy fashioned by Galván’s |
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