Juliana Aragón Fatula

Full Article

Poet: Juliana Aragón Fatula

Juliana Aragón Fatula, a southern Colorado native and a member of the Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo Foundation, won the High Plains Book Festival Poetry Award 2016 for her second book, Red Canyon Falling on Churches. Her first book, Crazy Chicana in Catholic City, published by Conundrum Press, has been used in creative writing classes in several universities. She believes in the power of education to change lives.

Poems

Cell Windows

Dark empty eyes. Alone, Ángel tries not to sleep at night.
Ángel kills me, “Do you have any tats? No…any brands?
His arm laced, branded, scarred.
“Done so many things wrong… you can’t shock me,” I whisper in his ear.
He leans near my face. “You don’t mean anything, to me.”
I close my eyes, mouth in silence. “I know you.”
Late at night, I turn the pages, read his essay “I hate men! I love women.” I give him an A-.
I turn off the light, watch mi esposo’s chest heave and fall.
I pray for Ángel; pray for temicxoch, the flowery dream, for all the angels.

Estrellas

Estrellas fall up toward morning,
scented of jasmine June.
Tang of time comes into bud,
soft stone glistens,
blue-black hatchling cries,
calling the night.
Listen.

Frida

God cast perfect light,
oozed violence high in the tree top.
En casa azul,
Frida captured hews of mist,
web of pain,
harsh beauty of ruin,
Zen of calla lilly
and violet.
Resentful,
the copper nightingale
refused to sing.

Hanging from the Hood

father holding onto a lantern hanging from the hood
of a Model T Ford, twenty miles per hour
on the dirt road from New México to Colorado
in the dark summer night stars bouncing up above
no moon to light the way praying for land, water, sun
leaving grandfather with his herd of sheep
grandmother with her garden
father searching for generosity,
hoping for prosperity
longing for equality
finding only
stars bouncing up above.

You Just Had to Be an Indian, Didn’t You?

Mom’s long Medusa braids like twisted fingers
pointing to the stars—
they’re top heavy as an ancient moon.
She’s real, like a drag queen’s décor,
it hurts. She’s southwest
like Santa Fe cacti, easy like an orchid
but we wear gloves cuz’ she’s sharp as a razor.
When she drums at powwow, it’s like a bomb
dropped on your head—
her love long. It’s great-giant Indian love.

Holy Bones

starless blue-black night,
la muerte dances on the grave.
not like the funky chicken dance,
more like the conga.
hips sway, the earth shakes,
the dance of the dead
down down down.
the bones bang da da bang da da bang.
el viento breezes through tired ribs.
more funny than scary.
muertos, juntos raíces,
get along when they’re dead,
porque, las calaveras
are all the same color—bone.

Poema for Sandra Cisneros

Whenever I can’t sleep, I pretend I’m in the house on Mango Street, casa azul. You’re there in the kitchen sloshing a drink all over your slippers. You wink and the corner of your mouth rides up like, ‘waz up?’ If you lived in my hometown, you’d have coffee on the back porch with me and we’d share secrets. I’d pop in sometimes to your house on Banana Street and we’d try on each other’s clothes. You are the sister I never got because my parents were too busy having babies in Colorado and you were born in Chicago. You can’t sleep tonight either. You are probably in your big fat chair sipping coffee and thinking about the poem I wrote for you. The coffee tastes like whipped cream with a splash of cinnamon. It takes on the flavor of the mountains and waterfalls, down smooth.

If you lived here we’d meet at the river-walk and ride our fat tire bikes up and down in the dark. That damn moon is so full it over flows and we could put our mouths underneath and catch some moon juice. It’s quiet there at night except for the occasional mountain lion and black bear, but they mind their own business. We could stop, sit on the park bench and watch the night flow down to Pueblo. I’d tell you about the time I read your book and cried because I never knew there was an Esperanza in me. I’d ask you why women aren’t supposed to be loose, drink alone, puff on cigars and cuss. You’d laugh and say, this is just a dream, wake up.

Tenochtitlan

blue-raven hair,
draped in wicked darkness,
her face absent lips or eyes,
she feels her way—
the wind carries la bruja
in the river mist.
she searches in torment for her niños,
but they were lost
five hundred years ago
in Tenochtitlan.
the river witch grieves their watery grave;
wails for children
to replace the ones she drowned—
she floats like fog, vanishes,
dragged into the thin dim dawn.

Coyolxauhqui and the Star Gods

Coyolxauhqui, feeling disgraced by her mother’s immaculate conception, created a plot with the four hundred centzón huitznahuas to destroy her brother, Huitzilopochtli, while he was still in the womb.

—Náhuatl Myth

The night was mine; centzón huitznahuas
shined just for me. Mother, earth goddess—
Father, sun god. Azteca princess,
they bowed when I entered.
Tonantzin betrayed us all. Tricked and seduced
by the god of immaculate conception,
her flaming feather ball of lust.
Brought forth the god of war;
his armor turquoise and emerald.
My brothers and sisters shamed by mother,
drew their obsidian knives, baby in her womb.
Dug our own grave with disgust, condemned, transformed
into the moon and stars in the glittering world,
waiting for the new sun.