(Image courtesy of Manny Beltran)
Contributor Series 2: Candy and Spirits
La Llorona, The Weeping Woman
By Ray Sharp
Mis hiiiiiiiiiijos,
mis pobreciiiiiiiiiiiitos!
My chiiiiiiiiiiiildren, my
poooooor babies!
The anguished cry from the
arroyo
pierces the moonless
night, a wailing
that emanates from beyond
the beyond,
foul ghost-breath on the scruff
of my neck,
stink of mud and rot and
something worse,
shiver of cold lightening
down my spine,
icy hand grabbing me by
the huevos and
squeezing them like two
quail eggs,
a sickening sensation of
bony fingers and
the sudden sound of
dry brown shells
cracking. Why do you
pull me down
to the edge of the black
and swirling
waters, oh La Llorona,
Weeping Woman,
Indian Princess, Traitor
of La Raza,
Doña Marina, La
Malinche, Wicked
Bitch, Whore of Cortez,
Medea-Witch?
You opened our land and
your legs
to the false Quetzalcoatl,
the white-
faced bearded killer who
burned the ships
at Vera Cruz, and
to the ghost soldiers
on their snorting
demon-horses who
raped Tenochtitlan and cut
out
the beating heart of México. And so
spawn, held them
fast under these very
waters, and dove
with them, your beloved
babies,
swimming to the depths of
Hell.
But you could not kill the
meztizos,
a million bastard children
born of
Padre España and Madre México.
To this day, you cry from
the river
for the flesh of your
loin,
for the blood of your
heart,
for the pain you endure,
the never-ending curse of
filicide,
and the suffering of those
who walk
this dry and dusty
God-forsaken land.
Down you pull me, under
the oily surface
into your muddy lair, your
arms like ropes
that bind me tight, your
ghost breasts
two empty paper sacks,
your sex
a dark and toothless grin
that sucks me
with its supernatural
attraction
and swallows my soul. Perhaps,
in the end, you had to
kill for the shame
your kind have worn since
Eve
fell from Grace, the world
in a state
of perpetual postpartum
depression.
Twice our sins wash down
this river,
one time baptism and the
other drowning.
I see now that it is only
just and good
that I surrender to your
sweet embrace
and kiss your dead white
lips,
breathe your darkness into
my lungs
and join you forever in
your watery grave,
wet womb from where we
were birthed.
Ay, Dios Mío!
Ray Sharp’s poetry (Synesthesia; Contributor Series 1: 9/11, Threnody for the Survivors of September 11, 2009; Under an August Moon; ( ); Clavicle; Sternwheeler) has appeared at vox poetica in 2009.
