ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Maria Esquinca is an MFA candidate at the University of Miami. She is the winner of the 2018 Alfred Boas Poetry Prize, judged by Victoria Chang. Her poetry has appeared in The Florida Review, Scalawag magazine, Acentos Review and is forthcoming from Waxwing. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juárez, México and grew up in El Paso, Texas.
The U.S.–Mexico Border Replaces Itself
after “St. Anthony’s Church” by Eduardo Corral
Instead of a wall, glitter
ocean. Instead of a green uniform, a saguaro undressed
becomes a blanket of thorns.
Instead of a dry river, a shot of mezcal firepeels
tongue & bone, bends body. Instead of the american flag, a bag of Takis learns to speak
Spanish, crinkles its plastic purple mouth: “Viva México cabrones!”
Instead of a border checkpoint, a bouquet of periquitos flies
away. All mad feathers. All azure honey scatter slashing the sky.
Instead of another deportation, the slit of my mother’s mouth blooms
a soft, but stern⁓ No.
Instead of a detention facility, a house full of angels
dressed as mariachis. Instead of Texas, the desert sky spills
the sun, bleeds mamey.
I wrote some poems that grapple with Prevention Through Deterrence, a disgusting policy that pushes immigrants to migrate through the Sonoran Desert. Thousands of immigrants have died crossing the desert, making it a mass grave. The horror of PTD coupled with the slew of laws passed by the Trump administration, took an emotional toll on me. It was hard not to cry and feel hopeless. So, a part of me was craving for poems that were happy. I started reading Slow Lightning by Eduardo Corral and it was one of those books that changed my life. I read "St. Anthony's Church" and I liked how Corral would replace the items in the church with images that had nothing to do with the church. I thought of applying this concept to the border, and replacing all of the atrocities with all of the beauty that exists in the border. It was a way for me to reclaim my homeland. The news would have us believe that the border is only death and crime. But that's far from the truth.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
