Recovery at the Point Past Annihilation
after Nicole Sealey
Our fathers have been burying us all our lives.
When I found myself decomposing in an oil tank
in Luling, Texas, I decided I wanted the revelation
at the beginning of the poem. A pickup thrown
in reverse, our bodies loaded in, wrapped in bedsheets
like the ghosts of our childhoods, led to the oilfield,
another space suffering from penetration
after penetration. We call Earth a she to justify our violence,
I read somewhere, but there’s nothing else we
could say to obtain violence’s indifference. No such word
exists. No such word exists to describe women
forced to move backward in this world, dead first
then alive if we happen to be lucky. Survival
isn’t sainthood, resurrected in a tiny monument
of the self, placed on apology’s thin altar. Suffocating
has grown tired of suffocating
has grown tired of suffocating
of the self, placed on apology’s thin altar. Suffocating
isn’t sainthood, resurrected in a tiny monument
then alive if we happen to be lucky. Survival
forced to move backward in this world, dead first
exists. No such word exists to describe women
could say to obtain violence’s indifference. No such word
I read somewhere, but there’s nothing else we could
after penetration. We call Earth a she to justify our violence,
another space suffering from penetration
like the ghosts of our childhoods, led to the oilfield,
in reverse, our bodies loaded in, wrapped in bedsheets
at the beginning of the poem. A pickup thrown
in Luling, Texas, I decided I wanted the revelation
When I found myself decomposing in an oil tank
Our fathers have been burying us in all our lives.
Reyna Angélica Marroquín Lives inside My iPhone
Reyna Angélica Marroquín, 1941-1969
Reyna Angélica Marroquín barreled, housed, verbed
until verb is no longer action. We’ve disturbed
decades. Time stunted in her belly,
lungs like a ship capsized in a bottle. We
read her. She glows night-lighted, as verse
in technicolor lulls me to bed. A bird
trapped within the walls, ghost worded
even when I power her down. I dream
Reyna Angélica Marroquín barreled, housed, verbed
& verbed & verbed until her head was blurred
with blood. She’s carried his sex with her
bottled in womb’s glass, intimacy
defiant & cruel. They met in the factory
where the plastic flowers murmured:
Reyna Angélica Marroquín, dove yourself homeward.
Iliana Rocha is the 2019 winner of the Berkshire Prize for a First or Second Book of Poetry for her newest collection, The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez, forthcoming from Tupelo Press. Karankawa, her debut, won the 2014 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). The recipient of a 2019 MacDowell Colony fellowship, she has had work featured in the Best New Poets 2014 anthology, as well as Poem-a-Day, The Nation, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latin American Literature Today, RHINO, Blackbird, and West Branch, among others, and she serves as contributing editor for Waxwing Literary Journal. She lives in Oklahoma with her three rescue chihuahuas Nilla, Beans, and Migo.