lungfelthroat

i used to believe the body could resuscitate
the lung refilled with used
i was never mexican enough
my apá tried medicine in english couldn’t deflate a bag full of glue
he huffed so much i shut my eyes so much
i couldn’t say the lump in my throat spanish wouldn’t do english wouldn’t do
my abuelita never remarried my abuelito jose dropped his hoe when his heart stopped
i used to believe if i pushed my palms hard enough against the air the splinters wouldn’t hurt
my apá picked up the hoe my abuelito dropped because he loved us
my amá picked up the hoe with my apá because she loved us
i want to write all this in single lines because my heart is heavy and we need the space to breathe
i used to hide under my bed
i used to hide my brothers and my sister under our beds when my father hit my amá
they say trauma affects how you perceive things
to not say is to not remember
the body remembers
my abuelito jose dropped dead dehydrated he was making holes for tomato seeds
i dont’t know yuba city california that well i was born there
my abuelito died in yuba city he was a bracero he had a short handled hoe
bridges don’t break borders when you write everything in language

•

today i dislocated my tongue swallowed the head of a serpent
in grimes california my abuelita chona taught me how to kill a rattle snake
take your hoe slice down as fast as you can before it tucks its head in
split-ted tongue at her death bed i brought my lover i couldn’t spit lesbian
i could not say the lump in my throat spanish would not do
my amá used to say how beautiful the aztecs were we don’t speak nahuatl
today i lit another candle and prayed to tonanzin and yolotl held my hand
my apa used to cry at night i would sit by his closed door and listen
they say trauma gives for good writing
they say i am exotic in spanish
every line is affected by the previous line
the tongue forgets the lung remembers
the poem breathes more than this
memory builds memory
my abuelita chona was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver she never drank alcohol
my amá and my apá used to come home drenched in pesticide my abuelita did too
my apá doesn’t know that i know
i heard my apá cry his apá jose hit his amá maria encarnación hard
my apá does not know that i write these things
i never said my abuelita’s full name until after she died
i learned to spell my abuelita’s full name when i read it in the newspaper obituary
my abuelita chona is buried in woodland california my abuelito jose is buried in juchitlan jalisco
i don’t know how to cross borders without tripping

•

i am always rearranging my poems
i am always rearranging my spanish when the memory changes
i am always rearranging my english when i remember
i don’t know what to tell you anymore the poem ceases to be when you forget your rhythm
everyone has a history every lung has poem
art doesn’t define art is a privilege
my voice hasn’t changed it is still here
my skin is brown my stretch marks are white
my folds are white
skin is just skin is the largest organ in the body we know this
the body has a long memory
there are many his-
stories
the form of the poem changes when the body remembers differently
el campesino moves from the tomato fields in yuba city to the walnut orchards in
winters to the tomato fields in woodland to the corn fields in dixon california

•

colonization = to penetrate so deep the tongue tangles
the form of the poem is saliva fluid enough to slide the tongue
spicer says we all speak one poem we all breathe
water moves because the wind does because the earth moves
we all move el campesino de nicaragua crosses costa rica’s border to work in the coffee mountains of naranjo
today i dislocated the brown of my skin the white of my folds
my father is addicted to huffing he gets lost every three years
the lung is connected to the line it inflates like so deflates like so
my brother called my dad a lacquer head i don’t know how to define this word
he used lock him self inside his room for days at a time
door shut lung
in the back of the house i took his warm yellow bag put it in a paper sack lit it on fire
the lung breathes exhales contains the word the body moves according to the word
the word moves according to the body
i have never been penetrated by a man a boy penetrated me at five
the memory fogs the eye the tongue licks the fog
i don’t remember his face
to penetrate is to find the most inner so the word can become blood and bleed
saliva makes things more fluid
blood stains
when a guatemalen tries to cross mexico’s border without papers she is shot on the spot
my tia threw away my blood stained underwear

•

i don’t know how to diagnose my father was never diagnosed lacquer head
he built three rooms in our house he didn’t sleep for days he didn’t huff for 6 months
my brother jose came back from boot camp boarded up all his windows
jose cleans his nails with bleach
the military gave jose dishonorable discharge
june jordan says some of us did not die
my mother wrote letters to the pentagon in broken english and cried in spanish
my amá says me tumbaron a mi hijo me lo hicieron en pedazos
jose looks at me and asks me if i am his sister
spanish won’t do
english won’t do
when the word can not be read but felt
jose talks to me in fragments
my apá lives with me in fragments
el campesino isn’t remembered
memory is fragment spliced respliced
my spanish is spliced
my english is respliced
in spain my professor says i speak a very humble spanish
a quiet spanish
my abuelita chona taught me how to hold a hoe left hand forward right arm at the ends
bend like so
my abuelita chona taught me how to carve into the earth
sink in fingers feed the tomato
in mexico my cousins call me a pocha and correct my spanish
i don’t know how to breathe chicana
it is hard to breathe aztlán
in mexico they say indio when you say something incorrectly
i don’t diagnose poems
i used to believe the body could resuscitate
before my abuelita chona stopped breathing she held on tight with her left arm
she trembled when she let go her hoe by the screen door
to narrate is to give self to extend self to locate each other
to sing is to fill the body to love is to create to give
the body filled with shared breath
i dont know how to contemplate my own navel it is lost between my folds
june jordan says some of us did not die
june jordan says she is a descendent of walt whitman
we remember in fragments
we learned breath first before we learned tongue muscle
we are descendents of whitman
to share in voice lung felt throat

Lourdes Figueroa was born in Yuba City, California, during a trip her parents made from Mexico to the USA when they worked in the campo tilling the soil. Her work is rooted in migration. Her poems are a constant dialogue of her lived experience when her parents and extended family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. The words el azadón are mostly used and only used by the ones who have worked the fields and work in the fields, it is what we call the work of tilling the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbook yolotl, and the chapbook Ruidos = To Learn Speak completed during her Alley Cat Books Residency. Her work has appeared in the zine MIRAGE edited & selected by Dodie Bellamy & Kevin Killian, Elderly, eleven eleven, Generations, Backwords Press, The City is Still Speaking Vol. 3 edited & selected by Kim Shuck, SF Poet's 11, and most recently was a featured in Night Music Journal vol. 6. Lourdes co-wrote the site specific play Fugue with poet Baruch Porras-Hernandez & Brian Thorstenson, based on the queer history of SF, in collaboration with the company Detour Dance and she co-wrote the film script for the indie feature This is Your Song. She received her MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry at the University of San Francisco. She works and lives in San Francisco with her wife, filmmaker, Peggy Peralta. Lourdes continues to believe in your lung and your throat.