Cover

Other Titles

ALSO BY SANDRA CISNEROS

FICTION

Martita, I Remember You / Martita, te recuerdo

Have You Seen Marie?

Caramelo

Woman Hollering Creek

The House on Mango Street

Hairs / Pelitos

Vintage Cisneros

Bravo, Bruno

Puro Amor

POETRY

Loose Woman

My Wicked Wicked Ways

Bad Boys

MEMOIR / ESSAYS

A House of My Own

Dedication

for Norma Alarcón, poetry ally

Mujer
sin
vergüenza

Tea Dance, Provincetown, 1982

At the boy bar, no

one

danced with me.

I danced with

every

one.

The entire

room.

Every song.

That’s what was so

great

about the boy bars

then.

The room vibrated.

Shook.

Convulsed.

In one

collective

zoological

frenzy.

Truthfully,

I was the

only woman

there.

Who cared?

At the Boatslip,

I was welcomed.

The girl bar

down the street?

Pfft!

Dull as Brillo.

But the tea dances shimmied,

miraculous as mercury.

Acrid stink of sweat and

chlorine tang of semen.

Slippery male energy.

Something akin to

watching horses fighting.

Something exciting.

My lover,

the final summer he was bi,

introduced me to the teas.

Often hovered out of sight,

distracted by poolside

beauties, while I danced

content/innocent

with the room of men.

He was a skittish kite, that one.

Kites swerve and swoop and whoop.

Only a matter of time, I knew.

Apropos, I called him

“my little piece of string.”

And that’s what kites

leave you with in the end.

There was an expiration date

to summer. Understood.

That season,

I was experimenting to be

the woman I wanted to be.

Taught myself to sun

topless at the gay beach,

where sunbathers

shouted “ranger,”

a relayed warning

announcing authority,

en route on horseback,

coming to inspect

if we were clothed.

Else fined. Fifty

dollars sans bottom.

One hundred, topless.

Fifty a tit, I joked.

It was easy to be half naked

at a gay beach. Men

didn’t bother to look.

I was in training to be

a woman without shame.

Not a shameless woman,

una sinvergüenza, but

una sin vergüenza

glorious in her skin.

Flesh akin to pride.

I shed that summer

not only bikini top but

guilt-driven Eve and

self-immolating Fatima.

Was practicing for

my Minoan days ahead.

Medusa hair and breasts

spectacular as Nike of Samothrace

welcoming the salty wind.

Yes, I was a lovely thing then.

I can say this with impunity.

At twenty-eight, she was a woman

unrelated to me. I could

tell stories. Have so many to tell

and none to tell them to

except the page.

My faithful confessor.

Lover and I feuded

one night when he

wouldn’t come home with me.

His secret—herpes.

Laughable in retrospect,

considering the Plague

was already decimating dances

across the globe.

But that was before

we knew it as the Plague.

We were all on the run in ’82.

Jumping to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,”

the summer’s theme song.

Beat thumping in our blood.

Drinks sweeter than bodies

convulsing on the floor.

Creed

I believe I am God.

And you are too.

And each and everyone.

But only for a little.

I believe God is

Love, and love is God.

And although some

Doubt God’s existence,

No one doubts the existence of love,

Even and especially those who have

Never met love.

I believe we are

Capable of atrocities beyond

Imagination and equally

Capable of extraordinary

God-acts as well.

I believe

There is enough misery

In the world, but also

Humanity—just a bit

More, I believe.

I believe in the power

Of a thought, a word,

To change the world.

I believe there is no greater

Sorrow than that of a mother

Who has lost her child.

I believe in las madres,

Las madres de las madres,

Y la santísima madre,

La diosa Guadalupe.

Because the universe is large enough

To encompass contradictions,

I believe these same mothers sometimes

Create monsters—los machos.

I believe mothers and grandmothers

Are the solution to violence,

Not only in Mexico / the United States,

But across the globe.

I believe what the generals need now

Are the abuelita brigades armed with

Chanclas to shame, swat, and spank

Los meros machos del mundo.

Amen.

At Fifty I Am Startled to Find I Am in My Splendor

These days I admit

I am wide as a tule tree.

My underwear protests.

And yet,

I like myself best

without clothes when

I can admire myself

as God made me, still

divine as a maja.

Wide as a fertility goddess,

though infertile. I am,

as they say,

in decline. Teeth

worn down, eyes burning

yellow. Of belly

bountiful and flesh

beneficent I am. I am

silvering in crags

of crotch and brow.

Amusing.

I am a spectator at my own sport.

I am Venetian, decaying splendidly.

Am magnificent beyond measure.

Lady Pompadour roses exploding

before death. Not old.

Correction, aged.

Passé? I am but vintage.

I am a woman of a delightful season.

El Cantarito, little brown jug of la Lotería.

Solid, stout, bottom planted

firmly and without a doubt,

filled to the brim I am.

I said the brim.

Remedy for Social Overexposure

Seek a pirul tree and sit

beneath immediately.

Remove from

ears and tongue,

words.

Fast from same.

Soak in a tub of seclusion.

Rinse face with wind.

In extreme cases, douse

oneself with sky. Then,

swab gently with clouds.

Dress in clean, pressed pajamas.

Preferably white.

Hold close to the heart,

chihuahuas. Kiss and

be kissed by same.

Consume a cool glass of night.

Read poetry that inspires poetry.

Write until temperament

returns to calm.

Place moonlight in a bowl.

Sleep beside and

dream of white flowers.

Never Mention to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas

That you made love

on an office desk

on the seventeenth floor

with a view of the Alamo.

Saw it upside down.

Your head dangling

off the edge of the desk.

But saw it right for once.

Shook from memory—

Bosnia. How neighbor

upon neighbor fired.

Grief in one century

bred in another ire.

Reason collapsed

like Stari Most, a bridge

of five hundred years.

What do you know

of tears?

What you choose

to remember—

Beware.

K-Mart, San Antonio, Texas, 1986

FOR RUBÉN

When I can take you to the K-Mart

on South Santa Rosa at sunset,

and say, Meet me over by the flip-flops,

I’ve got to get me some socks.

When I can toss in the shopping cart

my tampons next to your Tres Flores

hair oil, my microwave popcorn, your

pack of white tees, my San Martín

de Porres three-day candle.

When we have finished paying

and can sit in the parking lot

satisfied, you and I,

with nachos and an Icee.

Then we can marvel

at a thousand black wings

swooping against the downtown sky.

Urracas urracando in the trembling trees.

Smith’s Supermarket, Taos, New Mexico, at the Fifteen-Items-or-Less Checkout Line

The baby-faced cholo in front of me

gently drops a divider bar between

what’s his and mine.

On my side, a six-outlet surge

protector for my computer,

and a fireproof glass cup

for my Lux Perpetua candle,

a votive so powerful

it self-destructs.

On his,

a plastic bottle of store-brand vodka.

It’s noon, but somewhere

it’s happy hour.

Baseball cap bad-ass backwards.

Black leather from neck to knees.

One brow and ear stitched with silver.

And on his neck, “Rufina” in wispy

ink I would kiss if I could. Fool,

it takes one to know one.

I drive away wondering

if Rufina is helping him

drink his bottle of forget.

Or if it’s she who is regret.

I write till the dark descends.

My cell warm tonight.

Candles. Copal.

Outside my window,

mountain without a moon.

Buddha in lotus.

Silent and still.

By ten, hot bath, lavender salts.

Flannel buttoned to the neck.

Am certain Rufina is not

as happy as I am tonight,

in bed with my love,

a book.

Noche, La Casa Magdalena, Lamy, New Mexico

FOR SUSAN AND BERT

i.

All night,

wind rattles

at my door

like an over-

sexed lover

wanting in.

ii.

Yellow

flowers

in your

Guada-

lupe

nicho

remem-

ber when

they were

wild.

Tired,

they furl

themselves

to sleep.

iii.

A borracho

slings a beer

bottle against

the sky.

One billion

trillion

stars.

After a Quote from My Father

FOR LEVI ROMERO

The floors are sticky

With golden leaves

The dogs and I track in

On the soles of our feet.

Winter clothes need

To be brought down.

Make the bed.

Comb hair.

Wash the body.

Sleep.

Too many to-do’s

Posted on

My nose.

Check bank balance.

Stop at vet.

Pick up spray

For fleas.

None say:

Look at the moon.

Write poetry.

Take you time, mija.

Take you time.

Wasps in the Buddha Bell

Must be deaf

or devout on

this A. A.

Milne–blustery day.

On this wind-like-a-

bugle Emily day.

Deaf or devout,

they neither

desert

their monastery

nor appear

enraged.

Bell gongs.

And they

pray.

Ommmmmm.

Ommmmmm.

Ommmmmm.

Calendar in the Season of the Pandemic

the ants have

deserted

my shower

for the garden

at long last

spring

In Case of Emergency

Contact nearest

cloud. Begin by

calling Milky Way.

Summon:

pepper tree,

maguey,

donkey shit,

jacaranda shower,

river,

caliche,

scorpion,

hummingbird,

or pearl.

Will vouch

we are

kin.

Instructions for My Funeral

For good measure,

smoke me with copal.

Shroud me in my raggedy rebozo.

No jewelry. Give to friends.

No coffin. Instead, petate.

Ignite to “Disco Inferno.”

Allow no Christian rituals

for this bitch, but, if

you like, you may invite

a homeless dog to sing,

or a witch woman to spit

orange water and chant

an Otomí prayer.

Send no ashes north

of the Río Bravo

on penalty of curse.

I belong here,

under Mexican maguey,

beneath a carved mesquite

bench that says Ni Modo.

Smoke a Havana.

Music, Fellini-esque.

Above all,

laugh.

And don’t

forget.

Spell

my name

with mezcal.

Skip Notes

*With acknowledgment to Javier Zamora and his poem of the same title, though we each wrote our poems at about the same time, perhaps at the same moment, without having read one another’s. Saint Coincidence, as Joy Harjo would say.

It Occurs to Me I Am the Creative/ Destructive Goddess Coatlicue

I deserve stones.

Better leave me the hell alone.

I am besieged.

I cannot feed you.

You may not souvenir my bones,

knock on my door, camp, come in,

telephone, take my polaroid. I’m paranoid,

I tell you. Lárguense. Scram.

Go home.

I am anomaly. Rare she who

can’t stand kids and can’t stand you.

No excellent Cordelia cordiality have I.

No coffee served in tidy cups.

No groceries in the house.

I sleep to excess,

smoke cigars,

drink. Am at my best

wandering undressed,

my fingernails dirty,

my hair a mess.

Terribly

sorry, Madame isn’t

feeling well today.

Must

Greta Garbo.

Pull an Emily:

“The soul selects her own society…”

Roil like Rhys’s Sargasso Sea.

Abiquiu à la O’Keeffe.

Throw a Maria Callas.

Shut myself like a shoe.

Christ

almighty. Stand

back. Warning.

Honey,

this means

you.

Cielo
sin
sombrero

Cielo con sombrero

El cielo amaneció

con su propio sombrero

hecho de lana

sucia de borrego.

Un sombrero tan ancho

que deja la tierra con sombras

teñida de añil y lavanda.

Como el mar

visto desde una isla

de cara a tierra firme.

Como los trastes de peltre

de los campesinos

que comen sin cuchara.

Sky Wearing a Hat

Sky arose

with a hat all its own

made from dirty

sheep-wool.

A hat wide

enough to dye the earth

indigo and lavender with shade.

Like sea

seen from an island

facing land.

Like the pewter dishes

of country folk

who eat without spoons.

Jarcería Shop

A breakfast tray please. For my terrace.

In the morning I invite the bees

To raisin bread with lavender honey.

Don’t worry, there’s always

Enough for everybody.

I’ll take a few of those carrizo

Baskets, strong enough for a woman

To haul a kilo of fresh oranges

From the Ignacio Ramírez market.

As if. I usually send Calixto,

The handyman.

Add a palm fan.

And an ocote stick or two.

For the fire I’ll never ignite.

Solo de adorno, of course.

To amuse spirit ancestors!

Can you bring down

That papier-mâché doll?

Dressed in her best underwear.

I had one just like it as a girl.

No, I don’t have kids.

A comal would be nice

To reheat my evening tamal.

Only a comal gives it

That smoky flavor.

I don’t know how

To make tamales.

Why bother when

You can buy them

From the nuns.

A molcajete? Maybe.

Would make a cool bird

Bath for my yard.

Ay, and ixtle—

Maguey fibers

Hairy and white as

The grandfather’s chest—

To strop the skin raw in the shower.

My outdoor sink,

With ribs like a hungry dog’s,

Could use a step-stool stone

That dances un danzón,

And an escobeta scrub brush

Cinched tight at the waist

Like a ballerina.

Please deliver a fresh petate

With its palm tree scent

For my bedroom floor.

In the old days they were

My ancestors’ coffins.

And that ball of mecate string.

Might as well.

Plus a lidded straw basket

To store plastic market bags

The colors of the Mexican

Tianguis—

Sky turquoise,

Geranium coral,

Jacaranda, amethyst,

Tender green of

Fresh nopal paddles.

A cotton hammock

Wide as a market woman,

So while I sleep

The pepper tree can bless me.

Six carrizo poles

To hang the new curtains

Made from coyuchi cotton.

I came for a cage

For my onyx parrot—

A goodbye gift from my agent

Attached with a warning.

Don’t move south.

Los abuelos,

Who couldn’t read, fled

North during the revolution,

With only what

They could carry in un rebozo.

And here I am at fifty-eight

Migrating in the opposite direction

With a truck hauling my library.

I live al revés, upside down.

Always have.

Who called me here? Spirits maybe.

A century later. To die at home for them

Since they couldn’t.

And for my cobbled courtyard,

Your best branch broom

With a fine shh-shh,

Like the workers who sweep up

Saturday night on Sunday

Morning in el Jardín.

And, a bucket.

To fill with suds.

For the simple glory of scrubbing

Mexican porch tiles

In my bare brown feet.

When I feel like it.

On the housekeeper’s day off.

To set the grandmothers

Grinding their gravestone teeth.

Skip Notes

*This from the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy):

jarcería

f. Méx. Shop where objects made from vegetable fibers are sold. An archaic word, hardly in use anymore.

El Jardín, End of Day

To lose a kilo I walk

round and round el Jardín.

A monk hunkered in grief

is praying, I think.

Till I reel past his park bench

and note his book of hours.

His iPhone.

Under los portales,

a Mexican boy kisses

a boney gringuita.

No doubt he sees her

with Mexican eyes.

Bellísima

because she’s blond.

But los norteamericanos

see her with American eyes.

Nothing to write home about.

I imagine she sees him

with turista eyes.

Aztec beautiful.

But mexicanos

see him as feo

because he’s indio.

Night hovers.

Tourists lick ice cream cones

before setting out to dinner.

Kids in a sugar fury bounce

inflatable rockets on

church flagstones.

Beer bottles belch open.

Twilight sticky with the fried

scent of burgers and tacos.

Tethered to owners,

little dogs sniff concrete.

The cathedral an apricot hue,

sunburnt as los extranjeros.

Flocks of mariachi descend

itchy for work.

Balloon seller fidgets,

adjusts his yoke of

balloons and blow-up toys.

Shoulder aches.

Even air must weigh something.

While the sweets vendor

floats across the plaza

with a tree of cotton candy

the same colors as clouds.

I Should Like to Fall in Love with a Burro Named Saturnino

I should like to fall in love

with a burro named Saturnino

and sleep murmuring

that name as lullaby.

Warm my bed

with a xoloitzcuintli

the color of blue corn,

and will myself to be reborn

sunflower, ever

faithful to the sun.

I should like to learn to love

with the monogamous

passion of the parrot

and the foolish

valor of the chihuahua.

I should love to dedicate

my morning glory years

to the inspirational ants, who

peacefully and, without remorse

or humor, successfully evict me

from my shower every winter,

lessons in nonviolent persuasion.

I have much to learn from

the sentinel maguey about

fortitude, resilience, patience

in this season of los santos

inocentes de la política.

And day by day I am a student

of the morning sky.

And night by night I memorize

the sermon of the guru moon.

Next to my door

there is an ixtle rope

attached to a bronze bell

announcing visitors.

It does not ring when dawn arrives

with her furious scent of bolillos,

orange peels, and doorways

flushing buckets of Fabuloso

across wet stone.

Every day the same as the one before.

And never as the one before. Each moment

wrapped in newsprint and twine

and delivered always on time.

Figs

FOR DR. BRUNO CEOLIN

Some words

trip me

in my second tongue.

I say

pepino—cucumber

when I mean

pimienta—pepper.

Confuse

ginebra—gin,

when I mean

ginger—jengibre.

And when

the acupuncturist

tells me—

El hígado enamorado

quiere decir

el cuerpo está sano.

The liver in love

means the body is healthy—

I mistake

hígado—liver,

for fig—higo.

I prefer my translation.

All’s right with the world

when figs are in love.

Neither Señorita nor Señora

I didn’t love

those who did.

And did

those who didn’t.

Once

I almost proposed

in Paris.

Because it was Paris!

My heart

Fragonard’s shoe.

But he was afraid

of the Pont Neuf

and lingering

in the rain.

Another, too

busy saving worlds

to think of saving us,

I press between

the pages of my thighs.

Tender green

lost me to the darkness

under trees. And

lost himself to drink.

Worst,

the pest who could not love

at all, whom I loved best.

Shame!

I wanted as souvenir—

cue the violins please—

his child.

Even if disastrous

for the kid

and my career.

But that’s history.

More recently,

an exploding cigar.

Need I say more?

God saves fools

too foolish to

save themselves.

And now,

the Orizaba

years.

Here I have

no answer how

I got from then to now.

Except,

with gratitude

to all,

I bow.

Our Father, Big Chief in Heaven

Our Father,

big chief in heaven,

I sent my assistant Calixto

to make an appointment

with Her Highness, la licenciada,

who has left for lunch before noon,

gone for the day, was fired, or fled,

who can tell; the third director

at this post in fifteen months.

Deliver us

from the bearded tenor

who schedules at said institution,

busy today trimming his whiskers—

“My will be done. Thy kingdom come…

back tomorrow.”

Forgive us

our trespasses, as

we forgive el notario,

who ought to be called el Notorious,

for having us wait three months

for his return call, so Calixto and wife

can finally sign the deed on their first

home, having given up on the

call from their own notario, even

slower than mine, and already

waiting weary.

Everything

on earth is done

with papeles, signatures, patience,

and the arrival of others, whose

destiny is out of our hands, especially

if you are a native in this native land.

Father,

I know we

should be grateful for our small pains

in a nation where it’s easier to break

than follow law, where widows grieve

without recompense or consolation,

where limbs and heads of journalists

are delivered in trash bags when

they dare to print the truth,

where dogs bite with impunity,

masons fall from scaffolds in a puff

of dust and broken bones,

if lucky.

Eternally glad are we for our small woes.

Blessed are we to bed with all our appendages.

Bless our winged tenor and la licenciada chiflada,

our future on their whims depends.

Blessed be especially our Notorious; one day

may he yet sign our documents.

Give us this day our plentitude of wait.

And praise our politicians,

who teach us daily to endure.

Stretch our hearts ample as a yawn,

so we might accommodate the double-

wide trailer of our neighbors’ grief,

and, by comparison, feel

gratitude for our own. Misery

without end. Amen.

This in the News Unmentioned

The aged seamstress on

The old road to Querétaro

Has no work. Her

Sewing machine is broken.

Her eyes as well.

The rose seller from Santa Julia

Reads Neruda and dreams

Of buying his mother a stove.

It is the time of rain. She

Cooks outdoors with firewood.

The housekeeper’s five

Sons have all gone north.

Her favorite won’t phone, and

She can neither read nor write.

Meanwhile, arms drift south

And drugs shift north.

The avocados, beyond the budget

Of the seamstress, rose seller,

Housekeeper, travel north too

This season.

Police. Politicians.

México. United States.

Business always good

Between the two

Nations.

El Hombre

AFTER TAMAYO

On the eve of International Women’s Day

In a field on the road to Celaya

They find her body.

The deaf-mute girl who

Walked her dog in Parque Juárez.

No one tried, blamed, named.

The town knows:

It’s her father’s debts.

This is how they pay

Un hombre who can’t pay.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

In small print, in the back

Pages of today’s paper,

I read this small news:

Un Hombre Purépecha

Lifted from His Purépecha Village.

Daily the Purépechas demand his return.

Daily el hombre does not return.

He is only one of the many “lifted.”

When you are native in your native land

To whom do you demand? Who listens?

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

The bird merchant at the Tuesday mercado,

Six cages of cenzontles strapped on his back,

Shoves a mesh shopping bag so close

To my face, I have to step back to see.

A flutter of frightened canaries.

In the eyes of el hombre,

The same urgency, the same fear.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

The gringo Alan tells me the story

Of the pig who thought he was a dog.

Solovino he was called,

Because he came alone.

How each day Alan drove

Along the road to Dolores,

The dogs would run from

The squatter’s shack and give chase,

The pig who thought he was a dog

Trotting behind them.

Until one day the pig isn’t there.

The dogs disappear too.

One by one by one.

Alan shrugs.

When un hombre is hungry,

There is no one to blame.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

The “Religion” section of

Our Guanajuato newspaper

Features an article on St. Francis,

Un hombre of austerity, as

A model for all to live in poverty.

This in a country where almost every

Hombre, mujer y niño is already

On the path to sainthood.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

How it happened was like this.

One night Rosana catches un hombre

Breaking into her grocery store,

The son of a neighbor.

Her shouts wake the barrio.

They’re able to hold the thief

Until the police arrive.

Rosana is there to bear witness

At the court proceedings. And to

Witness the court set him free.

She gathers her pain in a handkerchief,

Goes home and calls the boy’s mother.

Rosana and the mother of the thief. Each

Woman lets loose a sea of grief.

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

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