The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (29 page)

and some, caught hard between

foodsilence and

fullarmscrying,

follow, into

a car.

Past the doors of public
Hospital Civil
,

pulling her
rebozo
tighter

round her dropping belly, rising life,

her tiny claim intact.

Nineteen years seems

long enough to wait

for this small cry,

the very first,

feels the head emerging

strong

the tiny heart pounds out

its shout of proud survival

small investment, kicking

whisked away

passed hand to hand

change arms to arms to beds

and on the road, new papers, forms

a neat 10,000 chopped

in many stops and stages

to Northern Nursery's Lie:

money buys it

all.

And somewhere at the
Hospital Civil

a scream undying burns:

This one's not mine!

This dead one pulled from your
hielera

for the cool fleshmarket's use…

The scream goes on, unchanging, strong,

as if to heat their hells

and rip their walls

and reach the wind, to touch

that one of hers,

so far.

Nine new noons of Indian-color-earth enfolding

warm as blood and turquoise-feathered prayers

and all they give her

is that purpled baby, cold

from the refrigerator,

thrice-abandoned one, reused

to move their market

that baby

cold

touched soft at last

by her painpartner fingers

whom even her

long burning scream

of rage and love

cannot

warm.

Sweet remember

when you ask our little girls to be

so sweet,

sit neat,

cry easy,

and be oh so pretty on a shelf

When our young women who are decent

are to always be

in company

of strong young men

who can

protect them

When parents breathe

a sigh of relief

to see their daughters married

and now safe

and someone else's

responsibility

When girls and women

are expected

to play at home, which others should protect,

to always breathe in innocence

and be shielded from heavy news, and death,

to sing and paint

and, when appropriate,

to scream and faint

Sweet Remember

that Marta Díaz de C.

had her legs spread

on an electric bed

as someone probed with great delight

to see her scream

till dead.

Sweet Remember

that Cristina R.L.O.

was taken in the night

from her parents' home

and husband's bed

and forced to talk with massive rape,

incontinence, indecency,

and forced to faint while hanging by her knees,

wrists tied to feet, till circulation ceased

Sweet Remember

Elsa B.

whose naked 3-year daughter

was immersed

in ice-cold water,

as the Sergeant pulled her tits and whispered in her ear,

“Whore, come sleep with me

and do it sweetly

or we will not let

the child's head up

until she kicks no more.”

And when she did,

they threatened a

Portrait in Two:

Whore and Child Whore—

side by side in bed—

with plenty of volunteers

to tear them both

right through the core

mass party rape in

stereo

and screams

galore

“and then we'll know

where we can find

and kill

your husband.”

And sad and sick,

to save her child,

she spoke.

And Sweet Remember

young Anita S.

who was raised to think her womanhood

was in her breasts

and inside panties and to be covered

in a dress

and then,

because the village teacher was

a critic

of the government,

and a family friend,

she was “detained,”

and called a Marxist,

had her breasts

slashed at with knives

and bit by soldiers eager

for their flesh

and had then “Communist”

burnt with electric pen

and shocks

into her upper thigh

and her vagina

run by mice,

and live to know

her womanhood

was in her soul.

And Tina V., María J., Encarnación,

Viola N., Jesusa I., and Asunción

who screamed first and did not think to strike

who'd never fired a gun or learned to fight

who lost their husbands, parents, children, and own lives

and oft times dignity or body parts or eyes

and some whose pregnant nipples tied with string

were yanked toward opposing walls

and back

till babes were lost

and blood was running black.

Sweet Remember

this is why

I do not ask

my child to cry

to sit sweet helpless and be cute

to always need a male escort

to think that only he protects,

not she, herself, and not she, him

to think herself so delicate

so weak,

to hold as inborn right a man's protection

or his pity for a tear on pretty cheek

But I will teach her

quite instead

that she is her own brave life

till dead

and that there are no guarantees in life

nor rights

but those that we invent

and that the bravest thing of all

to think, to feel, to care, and to recall

is to be human

and to be complete

and face life straight

and stand on solid feet

and feel respect for her own being

temple, soul, and head

and

that she owns her strong brave life

till dead

there are no political prisoners

only men's heads that show up sewed

into the now-pregnant bellies

of their fiancé's corpses

only hands that open

from the jungle floor,

fingers crying “
¡Justicia!”

as they reach like vines trying

to break free

only butchered organs

pressed into the earth

beneath the feet

of “government” officers

only Ixil Indians in rebellion,

their red woven messages of humanness

in whole Indian villages corralled, beheaded,

for existing too full

of straight-backed dignity

There are no political prisoners

There are no
problemas de derechos humanos

There are no repressions in free democracies

There are only Presidents

who scratch each other's backs,

blindfold each other's eyes,

laugh uncomfortably,

puffing the finest

popular-name cigars

and cutting too-human heads

from the non-human bodies

of non-justice.

Alfred Arteaga

Honorable Mention: Poetry

Primero. Arrival.

Arrival.

First, the island.

The cross of truth.

Another island.

A continent.

A line, half water, half metal.

An island of birds, “Ccollanan.”

An island of birds,

“Ccollanan Pachacutec!”

Sounds above an island, in

the air, trees, “Ccollanan Pachacutec!”

Female sounds. “Ricuy

anceacunac yahuarniy richacaucuta!”

An island of female birds, imagine

the sounds, the air, the trees, at times

the silence, the slither in thorns.

So perfect a shape, right

angles, the globe yields to so

straight a line, look. One

line, zenith to nadir, heaven,

precipitation. The only other,

straighter still than that horizon

we see at sea, perfect: paradise.

That horizontal line, from

old to new, he knew would yield,

yes, so perfect a move, he

knew, yes, so perfect a shape

yes.

Trees caught his thoughts.

Birds and onshores brought them

from the boats. She knew those

thoughts, heard those songs.

Could there be one more island?

Birds, sounds, perhaps pearls,

gold? Eden-Guanahaní, perhaps

another? “O my Marina, my new

found island. License my roaving

hands, and let them go, before,

behind, between, above, below.”

West.

América, América. Feminine

first name, continent named

for him. América.

Here, Santa Fe. Here, the true

faith. I claim, in the name of

the father. Land of thorns,

in the name of the son.

The edge of this world

and the other, is marked

in water: ocean, river, wave to

her, she waits on the other

side. Aquí, se llama la Juana,

de apellido Juárez, india,

prieta y chaparra, la que le encanta

al gringo, al gachupín.

Island of cactus, genus

Chauhtémoc. Island of rose,

land of thorns. Pedro de

Alvarado, an eagle, la

región transparente, a

night of smoke. Marina

Nightear, an ocean contained

in one woman, as it was in

the beginning, world

without end, fallen

eagle.

So feminine a shape. So female

a bay. Another shape: gliding

birds. Another: touching trees.

True name of woman, Vera Cruz,

body of a woman. “He named me

Xochitepec, yes so we are all flowers

of the mountain, all a woman's body,

that was one true thing he said in

his life.” Above, birds,

leaves, above so woman a form.

Las quince letras: not the seven words:

Contestó Malintzín, “yes

I said yes I will Yes.”

En el nombre

de la Virgen de las Espinas,

ella que en buena ora nasco,

this archeology is born: here

tibia, here ball courts, codices,

teeth. Inside, the caves are

painted. Here is an architecture,

see, toco, toco,

tocotín:

Tla ya timohuica,

totlazo Zuapilli,

maca ammo, Tonantzín,

titechemoilcahuíliz.

Mati itlatol ihiyo

Huel ni machicáhuac

no teco qui mati.

En la sangre, en las espinas

de la Virgen de Santa Fe,

these names are written:

América Estados-Unidos, née

México. I name her

Flower of the Mountain,

Coatepec-Cihuatepec-Cuicatepec

Amor Silvestre,

Terra Nova,

Cuerpo de Mujer.

The edge of this world

and the other, is marked

in metal: on this side America,

on this side América.

Nights they spill from

San Diego and Los Angeles

threading the steel mesh

como nada, los verdaderos

alambristas, buscando el cuerpo

de mujer, buscando,

Xochitepec.

Raymundo Gamboa

First Prize: Short Story

It's true that he returned immediately from Las Vegas yearning for the quieter, familiar place with an ocean to go with the sand. In the meantime, he had to be somewhere so he leans against a traffic lightpost on the Eagleston's Body Works [on the] corner of Golden State Freeway and 18th Street in Bakersfield, where lizards go to die.

Strawman's simple appearance, despite all it lacks, is adequate. His thin hair balds along the top, at the crown. The head looks more like a spherical mass of bone strategically located on his shoulders. From his hips, just above
the beltless pant waist of his corduroys is a lip of fat. Though chilly, he sports only a “Last Act of Defiance” T-shirt and torn, multi-colored Converse court shoes, without socks and with frilled laces.

He removes the Marlboro butt, though long enough for several more puffs, from his gap-toothed mouth as he decides to lift his thumb, to flash his juice card, making his move to the Pacific Ocean. One more good night of hitchhiking, of signaling his optimism. He sneezes the ash off the 'boro, dropping the cigarette from his left hand and the S.B. [Santa Barbara, CA] cardboard sign from his right as he runs from the sport pick-up that has pulled over just ahead. Of course, they play leap-frog with him. After a couple of hops, he jumps into the back, they throw him a poncho, and hand him a
sin semilla
joint through the cab's sliding window. His life becomes harmonious with the wintry evening while traveling on the cheap.

At first, the wind whines a memory of innocence. Once a youngster walking in an alley, he came across a tomcat, white and fluffy, with its fur frilled from being on the outs. He'd say to his friends, “It came with the name Carnation.” It disappeared as casually as it had appeared. Months after, he had decided it had been killed. It wouldn't have just left him. Straw ran across another one in the same alley. Even to Strawman, it looked exactly like the first one though he knew it wasn't. He thought it cute to name it Reincarnation, just for the wittiness of it, but his parents wouldn't allow it. They thought they broke his infatuation but he'd call it by that name in their absence. That was the first time he went with the motion of the ocean, readily conceding, in return for personal peace.