Maps
Night and they go
on long drives up back roads,
highways and state routes
that criss-cross
dry desert slopes
where creosote and sage squat low to the ground
and only the saguaro stretches
its arms high into the sky.
Day and boys lean
against window sills,
car doors and each other
eyes wide at the gifts of dawn
high desert pines that sound like the sea
and grass that sways like Mama's skirts in the breeze.
He slides his hands over the pages of the road atlas
caresses the cartogropher's rendition
of the landscape of his youth.
He searches for names of places
he hasn't breathed in over fifty years but
he remembers the warmth of his father's arms
across his shoulders there
and the laughter of his brothers there.
They followed ripening apples and cherries
signs of crops to be harvested
baskets to be filled
meals earned
money earned
by their hands
small
calloused already
by their work
in fields, in groves, in row upon row
of someone else's farms.
Childhood spent driving
sleeping in camps, cars,
houses that leaked rain
and swallowed mud
and breathed wind that whistled
over their heads.
He finds the familiar
and smiles.
Copyright 2009 Andrea Hernandez Holm
Dog Effigy
Hardly visible in the pre-dawn
Xoloizcuintli runs
yipping
through the streets
emerging
from the underworld
where he plays with the dead.
Neither male nor female,
Xoloizcuintli's slick hairless body
moves rapidly,
its pace quickening as it rushes
to greet the soul
Xolotl sent it to find.
Biting at darkness,
it searches among the scents
of flesh wet with night's sweat
of morning's first urine
of smoke and flame
and nixtamal sizzling on the comal.
Out of the corner of her mind's eye,
an old woman sees Xolozcuintli coming
and she knows that there is room
in its belly for her.
She gathers her strength and courage
in bundles she clutches tightly
as she stands ready at the door.
Xoloizcuintli approaches
and its movement stirs small flurries of dust
that curl upwards into the still gray skies
to escape the howling of dogs
whose primal instincts
have been awakened by its presence.
The Senora listens for Xoloizcuintli,
Her heart beating anxiously
as she waits for it
to guide her from this world
to the next.
Copyright 2009 Andrea Hernandez Holm
Birth
I did not swim into the world
in a river of amniotic fluid
but in a steady stream of stories
sustained by mi abuelita, mi mama, y mi tias.
They nourished me with their words,
tales of grandmothers passed,
places loved,
and times gone by.
On Sunday afternoons
we crowded into Abuelita's room,
where I curled in a dark corner,
quiet
while these women, my women,
pulled memories
from the old leather petaquilla.
Each would take a corner
and together, unfold
stories like quilts--
spread them out
and shake them--
until the dust and wrinkles were gone.
They laid them over me then,
layered one memory upon another
until I lay under the blanket of our history,
warm and content in its embrace.
When the petaquilla was empty
the words spread about us
like drifts and dunes near the sea.
And it was these women
who listened for my breathing
and with great ease,
brought me to light.
Copyright 2009 Andrea Hernandez Holm
