My Mothers

Look me in the face and call me bruja.
Let the label linger on your tongue before you swallow the reality,
Before you digest the inherited truth.

Go to the sea, my mother
Y cobrale mis chingaderas.

Recall baptism in clear waters, salted by Earth and divine prayers
Slapped awake by rolling waves.
Y sin hoder, you swear there is nothing better than starting over.
Then being clean.
Then being memory-less.

There is nothing better than the light against the dark that surrounds you.

Ask the roaring river to stand still.
Adorn my Goddess with peacock feathers.
Worship Her unmeasurable beauty
And she will shower you with mirrors,
Reflect your sins back to you.

This too is loving. This too is a kindness. This too makes you new.

Watch me give birth, fertile with the words
gifted by ancestors, cracked from saintly time capsules.

Watch as my words crash into olas llevadas por la corriente
De llantos con valor.
Worth six pennies and a wish.

They are reborn as raindrops.
They are reborn as thunderstorms.
They are reborn as hurricanes.

These are the words of my mothers,
conjured by brujas like me.
Spells like conversations.
Thoughts as poetry.
Research as narrative…
…until the healing begins.