La Malinche
—Nahua mistress and translator to conquistador Hernán Cortes
At her breast you leaped
toward the New World. A boy again
runaway from home
to scale the tin roofs
of Juarez
to skin fur & feathers
Cactus Wren
& Kit Fox
the cat dragged to
your hand.
Toothy as prickly pear
in the Chihuahua,
the aunts
sniffed out your altars
& rose up
swinging beargrass
brooms, pinching mud-
caked ears, till
they beat you
down to piss
alleyways.
✥
Amid bazaar accordions
a white kerchief
danced
a huapango,
just for your eye.
So fine, so smooth— but soiled,
you gushed.
Surgeon fingers
laid bare the mark—foul
as a harelip—
clinked
pocketsful of silver.
Oh how your eyes
never broke
the seal of desire, not
till you won:
The beauty was yours
for a much smaller price!
Wooing her you whispered,
My love is not
a modern woman,
but a fleshy de Kooning,
bruised iris for a heart
splashed
on canvas—
a voice willing to tiptoe
from seabed
to salty fog.
✥
One night you were sleeping
when skies opened up
& swallowed
pueblo lights, the moon,
the stars—
You heard footsteps or
rooster claws on the roof,
scratching backward
& forward.
✥
She was your Indian girl that summer—
in corn & sun you loved her,
but came winter
brown thighs washed milky
a neck stained too pink,
so off you sent her
on a boat with a letter
to Father.
✥
She bolted upright in stirrups
at your decree:
Aha!— Dentata!
coming of age
with molars, full-blown.
You pressed an ear to her breast
like a stethoscope,
& listened
for muted arias—
Verdi, Puccini—
cresting
clear-cut & glassy.
*La Malinche was originally published in Southwestern American Literature