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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