undefined relationship #12
You said we shouldn’t make out anymore.
Two days later I got a yeast infection.
My GYN is texting: ¿Todavía te arde?
My plan is to impose loneliness on you,
in a headstand, breast to clavicle.
When you get a really nice rejection letter,
it’s like a guy thought you were awesome
but fell in love with someone else.
You’d made a list, it went: supportive, hot,
intelligent, knows what he wants to do
and does it.
The no pile clings to that warmth
in the other room.
¿Ya se te quitó el ardor o continúa?
Like a feather not quite grazing.
Do you miss me yet?
I’m doce horas por tres días
swigging a can of Best Sweet Tea.
How much it had mattered
to catch a cool
worth pausing for.
Two days later I got a yeast infection.
My GYN is texting: ¿Todavía te arde?
My plan is to impose loneliness on you,
in a headstand, breast to clavicle.
When you get a really nice rejection letter,
it’s like a guy thought you were awesome
but fell in love with someone else.
You’d made a list, it went: supportive, hot,
intelligent, knows what he wants to do
and does it.
The no pile clings to that warmth
in the other room.
¿Ya se te quitó el ardor o continúa?
Like a feather not quite grazing.
Do you miss me yet?
I’m doce horas por tres días
swigging a can of Best Sweet Tea.
How much it had mattered
to catch a cool
worth pausing for.
the time i realized i wasn't white
I was nine and Grandma Miller introduced me
at the San Diego Pentecostal church.
I politely kissed her white friend
on the cheek, to everyone’s shock,
and burned a red backdrop
to my freckles.
A few years after my quinceañera
my Spanish boyfriend
corrected
algo en las estructuras que no va
flattened my accent in a cove of love
a woman’s grievances
folded in papers he’d lock away
childish confetti.
Feminism’s just a petty excuse
for my voice silenced
from radical to analyst
from beacon to branded
from brilliant to affirmative action
from man to woman.
I hide my phony diploma
behind my leg
check from the side of my eye
if anyone’s looking.
The white boy couldn’t get in anywhere
because he was a white boy.
The time I was most white was when at twenty-five
I capitalized on your adolescence in Virginia
knew your South Asian wouldn’t let you
say no to me.
That’s the time I saw myself in you.
The time I was least white was when in Mexico
a white man took my work
and didn’t invite me to the party.
In Spain at twenty-two
my teacher called Latin America
an insult to language
in front of ten women and an institution
that said the sun would do enough
to dry me.
One time I wasn’t white and
didn’t realize
was at nineteen in New York
when Becca Stein said the Spanish street names
in my poem were disorienting
like is this Arizona or Mexico
because the way you’ve situated the text
is confusing
—to a white woman.
The time I felt most white was when
at eighteen I read David Foster Wallace on SWE
and agreed.
The time I felt least white was when
fuck you.
The time I felt least white was when
people only care
if your camera won’t show your color negative
if you can afford a camera, SWE, BMW, 401K.
The time I was least white was when
insurance is only for residents
and they pick up the phone and say who’s speaking
And I say María Fernández.
The time I felt least white was when
I had a skinny iced latte in Polanco
and my girlfriends said Chicanos
weren’t really Mexican.
The time I felt most white
was when I laughed along.
at the San Diego Pentecostal church.
I politely kissed her white friend
on the cheek, to everyone’s shock,
and burned a red backdrop
to my freckles.
A few years after my quinceañera
my Spanish boyfriend
corrected
algo en las estructuras que no va
flattened my accent in a cove of love
a woman’s grievances
folded in papers he’d lock away
childish confetti.
Feminism’s just a petty excuse
for my voice silenced
from radical to analyst
from beacon to branded
from brilliant to affirmative action
from man to woman.
I hide my phony diploma
behind my leg
check from the side of my eye
if anyone’s looking.
The white boy couldn’t get in anywhere
because he was a white boy.
The time I was most white was when at twenty-five
I capitalized on your adolescence in Virginia
knew your South Asian wouldn’t let you
say no to me.
That’s the time I saw myself in you.
The time I was least white was when in Mexico
a white man took my work
and didn’t invite me to the party.
In Spain at twenty-two
my teacher called Latin America
an insult to language
in front of ten women and an institution
that said the sun would do enough
to dry me.
One time I wasn’t white and
didn’t realize
was at nineteen in New York
when Becca Stein said the Spanish street names
in my poem were disorienting
like is this Arizona or Mexico
because the way you’ve situated the text
is confusing
—to a white woman.
The time I felt most white was when
at eighteen I read David Foster Wallace on SWE
and agreed.
The time I felt least white was when
fuck you.
The time I felt least white was when
people only care
if your camera won’t show your color negative
if you can afford a camera, SWE, BMW, 401K.
The time I was least white was when
insurance is only for residents
and they pick up the phone and say who’s speaking
And I say María Fernández.
The time I felt least white was when
I had a skinny iced latte in Polanco
and my girlfriends said Chicanos
weren’t really Mexican.
The time I felt most white
was when I laughed along.
boys are like houses in a biracial, transcontinental state
Two stuffed bags. A closet arranged from purple to black, customary in Columbia dorms. Chucked an exam hangover into six human-sized boxes, followed by five-dollar margaritas spewing me blue on a viscid wood floor: six legs, three tongues, multiple smartphones testifying. Then an apartment furnished to eat at the liver, pinching it tight like money. Street finds to compensate: scrubbed record shelves, an impressionist yard framed in gold. My roommate’s thick glasses, eraser dust, notes almost rebooking the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Seven choking perfume spritzes, for luck.
*
Two hovering years. Adrià mutated from vellum to liberty, swan song eight times through the Caribbean. Multiplied his specter into nine human-shaped deposits, followed by muscles ticking me blue on my phone: indigent, deaf-eared, pinched in a heartbeat of lubricated ego. Then hypochondria spews herpes from whitescreen to skin, harking me back to his question. Street finds to compensate: a Texan jock, a cult child, Adonis stealing his pinesmell. Erased to a new stability, a gust of wait, the future scudding out on overstretched tentacles. Left a sludge slipway, for luck.
*
Two potioned poems. Concocted relationships cursing my drive from genesis to mud, buried nine ribs down from atonement. My brain vacuumed into human-sizing mirrors, followed by tweezers clipping me red on a cortisone lake: YouTube yoga, insomniac, a sallow bed of cesspooled escapism. Then twenty-seven strands of rejection letters, pinning a desiccated moth to a millennial sense of purpose. Metaphysical steals to compensate: a poem Mónica de la Torre wrote in my dream, God’s voice channeled through a grimy garrafón, a therapist. Churned by a threat cue choked in shoelace, a propulsion cradled in tissue flesh, clouds spelling tedium to amaranth. Oiled ten hands in violet, for luck.
divorce
there is a thought of you
showing up in mexico
white gardenias
clutch two fingers on yours
in a cab
but the current seeps
through pipes
flushed toilets
echoes of footsteps
underfloor
i put the kettle on
the bottlebrush
pear stem
and purple afterlights
exist in spite of us
the way you hug me
a smoked chicken
at the center of a birthday cake
our walls frame the one space
we’ve abandoned
so we cross our
sheet hurricane
to a five-month atlantic
where we send each other poems
just to say you’re beautiful
still beautiful
showing up in mexico
white gardenias
clutch two fingers on yours
in a cab
but the current seeps
through pipes
flushed toilets
echoes of footsteps
underfloor
i put the kettle on
the bottlebrush
pear stem
and purple afterlights
exist in spite of us
the way you hug me
a smoked chicken
at the center of a birthday cake
our walls frame the one space
we’ve abandoned
so we cross our
sheet hurricane
to a five-month atlantic
where we send each other poems
just to say you’re beautiful
still beautiful
✱✱✱
 María Cristina Hall (1991) is a Mexican-American poet and translator. Editor at Mexico City Lit and La Cigarra, she currently teaches English at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City. mcristinafernandez.net @mcristinafdz |
