LA MALINCHE
If poetry is the flowered word
and Mexico City is the moon’s navel,
and Huitzilipochtli, the God of War,
killed his 400 brothers and sisters, the stars,
and Quetzalcoatl—after having seen
his face in the smoking mirror—
made love to his sister, then walked off,
only to return under the Fifth Sun,
in the Year of the Reed—
did he return as Cortés
to make love to la Malinche?
(Marina of the sea was baptized like me.
Mi lingua, la Llorona, my sister, my voice;
who spoke in tongues, was betrayed by her body,
blue-eyed mestizos fell from her like stars
to populate the cities of the sky.)
La Malinche, the traitor, she was called,
(as Spain deliberated—did the Indios have souls?)
Our feet climb temple steps
to the sacked pyramids crowned
with a thin veneer of churches—
coffins for the war of the souls that followed.
(The Indios came bearing gifts of jade and gold
to the returnéd god, Quetzalcoatl.)
Lost in the streets of Mérida,
I gave away the clothing of your promises.
In the smoking mirror made from a fallen star,
I saw the clouded reflection—two sets of eyes—
not knowing I too, was La Malinche.
The unborn eyes of a child
in the mirror you held to my face.
Hummingbird hearts beating
at the War of the Flowers.
Quetzalcoatl, the god of Time,
lost the stamens and pistols of words
when he bared his heart to obsidioan knives
at the altars of Xochimílco.
In the Year of the Reed, an eclipsed sun
hid in the cities of the moon.
Only the roots of the ceiba tree
hold up the walls of Cortés’ house.
No monument in stone,
no flowered words buried
in the underbelly of the continent
awaiting a rediscovery.
Only the pale afterbirth of the moon
to survive us.
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