Alma Cuerpo Masa
My mother says a soul
Can find its way into a body
At any given time
It can entrench itself in your masa
Like my mother’s hands
Palming a fat white egg
Cracking it open
With a thwack
Against the round lip
Of a shallow bowl
And the metal rings out
Clattering
Against the stone
Of the countertop
The wet plop
Of the yolk pooling
Before it leaves
The dough only slightly more yellow
When the dough rises
In the oven
My grandfather’s soul rises
In my blood
At five-ten
I am me
But at five-twenty
She says I have formed a wan crust
By six o’clock
The loaf is resting
Golden
On the cutting board
And the house is full
Of my scent
Paresthesia
To say I love you:
Love is a wisp of copper hair tucked behind a pierced ear,
Love is laying together in a twin-sized bed, tracing lines onto warm hands
And the purplish lips that brush a stain onto my cheek.
It is a wisp of copper hair tucked behind a pierced ear
That doesn’t hear me,
And purplish lips that brush a stain onto my cheek and
That tickle my arm when it is cold and
That don’t hear me
When I whisper I love you into your hair
That tickles my arm when it is cold
As you lie in my arms with enough weight to make me numb
And I whisper I love you into your hair
And you croak I love you back
As you lie in my arms with enough weight to make me numb
And I press the bleeding heart of my lips to your crinkled forehead
And you croak I love you.
It is my cold fingers lingering on one shoulder
As I press the bleeding heart of my lips to your crinkled forehead
And the numbing grip of a pink, manicured hand on mine.
It is my cold fingers lingering on one shoulder
While they cover you with my leather jacket,
And the numbing grip of a pink, manicured hand on mine
As you say I love you
While I cover you with my leather jacket
And sharp shivers run through me
As you say I love you
And I tug on your hand
And sharp shivers run through me
When my back presses against your warm stomach
And I tug on your hand,
Which is draped on the dip of my waist.
When my back presses against your warm stomach,
Love is laying together in a twin-sized bed, tracing lines onto a warm hand
Which is draped on the dip of my waist
To say I love you.
Aubade
I long for gauzy custard Morning to lift me
From my polyester bed into the warm cloud
Above the sky and blue nitrogen,
But that layer of the atmosphere
Is at least ten feet above my head. I jump
From underneath the duvet with a colorful print
The same as a drying field.
Flowers are molding in the streaked vase.
I smell lavender. Inhale, sweetly, exhale,
A gag on the patio. The Sun’s long long
Arms wrap around my skin ten times, and I
Picture myself the next night, dripping in shivering
Dark dark Dark, already longing
For the rays to lift me
Into drippy, custard morning.
Karla Renée Nemanic is a queer Latina whose passion is amplifying marginalized voices in literature. She is the poetry editor at Aristeia Anthology and a regular contributor at Rose Quartz Magazine. Her work has previously appeared in The Fem. When she’s not writing poetry or reading, she’s baking chocolate chip cookies and cuddling her black cat, P. B. Shelley.
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