5am; the moon parts light across his face through the blinds. Kissing new husband slowly Our lips part warm and soft. They give Without knowing This is life giving I draw in his exhalation; I fall to sleep. I dream of our second fetus. Our own Señor Pakal, the radiant, the next Cosmic Indio King. He wakes me a second time for Plump kisses to naked hips The warm suckle charms me nearer to promised daylight. Slit-like vision, Eyes dry as red clay. He says we’ve only got the holding pattern of a baktun Before we must leave this place. There is agony in my bones, I stand rigid as wild grass growing over train tracks in the barrio. A shock of pain cuts below the waistband of my c-section scar; my unpregnant body folds in half. I believe in blending together blessings. The baby was cut from me before I was sewn back together. Jade carved from my caverns. My breath escapes with sound Our locked hands know that only hip bones could let loose. I am uncomfortable In this skin of fire a moonbeam witness Sacred drops of blood a slipstream in red salt ceremony. I say, “The saddest feeling in the world is when you leave my body.”
Viktoria Valenzuela is currently working on her MA/MFA in Creative Writing and Social Justice at Our Lady of the Lake University. She is an inaugural Zoeglossia Fellow, a Macondista, and the organizer of 100 Thousand Poets for Change: San Antonio. Her writing keeps keen focus on Chicana m(other)ing as decolonization and political action. She is a writer and activist whose work appears in various zines and journals such as the 2019 Zoeglossia Anthology, Poetry Bay Online Journal, Mutha Magazine, The MALCS Journal, and A Prince Tribute Anthology: I Only Wanted One Time to See You Laughing. Valenzuela and her partner, Vincent Cooper, have six children and live on the Westside of San Antonio, Texas.
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