CONSIDERING OCEANS

by Linda Rodriguez
I
Inside the museum this sultry afternoon,
the air-conditioned hum offers an imitation
peace like that of libraries and empty churches.
I wait for you, as I have promised,
promising myself this afternoon will do no damage
to an earlier oath, watching out the window
where the sun shatters
against the fountain’s water and water
transmutes to something other than air or water.
Though I sit at the point of betrayal,
my face feels smooth and unyielding
as the face of Saint Teresa
gilded on peeling wood or the sea
on the wall before me, becalmed yet broken
by the ship’s hull and dorsal fins.
The ocean next to that one is all drowning
storm and cloud, as if the two paintings were
before and after, the seeds of one
hidden in the other.

II
Must it always be one or the other?
My husband’s love laps at my closed shore,
then slides back into turquoise depths, a lake
his love, no sea like yours,
gray ocean breakers rolling over
galleons and frigates and the backs of whales
and sharks and squid and dolphins who
leap and squeal as they follow the sails
of men (and now their motors), catching rides
on the wakes of ships. He has no dolphins
in him, only freshwater fish, frogs and trees
under the water, a sunken forest
drowned with its squirrels, snakes, ants and bees
that once made a world, reduced
to a floating green crest.

III
We whisper in deep-carved shadows
of the recreated medieval chapel.
They built to keep the heat and sun out.
The dark ages knew
summer draws insanity and sin,
a poultice pulling infection from the soul
to burst in the sun.
It was always summer in Eden.

IV
Mother of Perpetual Help,
with your slanted eyes hurt
by visions of your later Son
who sits now, infant, in your hand, a perfect
fit, and takes your thumb
between his palms, as if to suck,
pray for us.

Mother of the Word Incarnate,
though attended by angels
floating near your narrow ears,
though surrounded by hieroglyphics
and striped everywhere,
your Son as well, with gold,
though you wear a halo crown,
despise not our petitions.

Virgin of Virgins,
in paint, wood, song, stone, clay,
I stand before this incarnation
with its blue porcelain necklace
and long hands that cup your Infant
as if you would never let go.
Help us, we pray.

V
We enter the twentieth century
on the floor above. Neon tubes,
gears and ratchets, kinetic
sculptures flashing dissonance,
disjointed collage, counterfeit
museum guard so real
you ask for directions to the men’s room,
have to get them from the small black
woman in uniform in the corner.
I turn back,
down the marble stairs,
run through the Egyptians
all the way to the Coptics, hide
among flat-faced icons, holding my breath
from fear of your finding me, of what I will want to do
if you do. I watch you pass the massive stone
lion-casket on your way out.
I breathe again
in pain.
VI
In these halls of art, Mother,
I call on you with your human face
and divine Lover who came
only once, leaving you to someone else’s
kindness. I can see how hard
your life must have been with him
always forgiving.
Yet he loved the boy.
Of course, you were innocent,
they say, and angels smoothed
your way with Joseph afterward. None of them
will come to my husband, asleep,
to tell him I’ve escaped burning
but not the ocean.

VII
Am I any less lost in the storm
because it has a frame?
The Englishman who laid down
the paint so long ago felt
the lash of rain, shivered to thunder’s
blast, saw lightning burn
its way across the clouds to the sea,
even if he stood before a tea table
on floral carpet as he splashed ocean
across canvas. His tempest rages before me
six generations later. Drenched,
I wander home.

First published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)
Copyright © Linda Rodriguez. All rights reserved.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda Rodriguez’s three novels published by St. Martin’s Press featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—have received critical recognition and awards, such as Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Award, selections of Las Comadres National Latino Book Club, 2nd Place in the International Latino Book Awards, finalist for the Premio Aztlán Award, 2014 ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Barnes & Noble mystery pick. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.


For her books of poetry, Skin Hunger (Scapegoat Press) and Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press), Rodriguez received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence, the Midwest Voices and Visions Award, the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, the 2011 ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.

Rodriguez is 2015 chair of the AWP Indigenous/Aboriginal American Writer’s Caucus, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers and Kansas City Cherokee Community.

APACHE DANCE IN LOOSE PARK

by Linda Rodriguez

The man and woman in the frozen park
at midnight are crazy. See
them dance—come together,
her eyes spitting, his aware of his sin.
Watch her rigid stance
melt and his slouch turn fierce.
With choreographed impulse, her hand extends
to touch his cheek. He jerks away
in pain or something rougher.
Her shoulders sag, then square
themselves and shrug. She pivots,
ready to leave. Now he reaches out,
spins her around, draws her
close. She struggles
against his arms and chest, hands fluttering, while
he drags her off the spotlit sidewalk.
Watch her glance at the dark bushes, then
at the strange hate
in his face. See how grim
her own grows, how
she tosses her head toward the night,
as if to say, “Go ahead.
Get it over with. Rape me, kill me,
end it somehow. You can’t want that
any more than I do.”
Now his face softens.
Once more she tries to touch.
He sways away from her outstretched fingertips.

They’re crazy. Listen
to her laugh, twisting loose
and whirling away from her opponent
in the dance or war
they’ve staged here
where all breath is visible
under the streetlamps. How fast
she runs to her car and leaves.
How unprepared for this step he is.
He can’t reach out
to stop her until her car is rolling
down the drive. In the rearview mirror,
she will see his hand lift,
his mouth open, his face twist,
and she will notice
what a stranger he is, older
and fatter and sadder
than she realized.
She will stop for coffee and doughnuts
and warmth, sit coughing and shivering
alone and hate every man
who eyes her. He will clutch his chest
alone under the streetlamp,
bowing to the audience of tree and frost,
then stumble, suddenly blind,
to his car and drink
himself to bed, only to dream
of shrubs hiding blood and bruised flesh
on the frozen ground, of how
a man can come so close to killing
what he loves.

First published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)
Copyright © Linda Rodriguez. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda Rodriguez’s three novels published by St. Martin’s Press featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—have received critical recognition and awards, such as Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Award, selections of Las Comadres National Latino Book Club, 2nd Place in the International Latino Book Awards, finalist for the Premio Aztlán Award, 2014 ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Barnes & Noble mystery pick. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.


For her books of poetry, Skin Hunger (Scapegoat Press) and Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press), Rodriguez received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence, the Midwest Voices and Visions Award, the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, the 2011 ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.

Rodriguez is 2015 chair of the AWP Indigenous/Aboriginal American Writer’s Caucus, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers and Kansas City Cherokee Community.

lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com


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