Mothers of Gut

Chavela
She’s drinking tequila, small boney fingers wrapped tightly around her glass. In her voice are the tragedies of the desert, a cry from the sun burnt canyons of her chest. The sky blazes red, losing oxygen. She alone is the heat of the desert.
2000 miles from her window, the Santa Ana winds thrust wildly through my hair. Outside are the sirens I hum to; I do not speak, but my silence is man-made and vicious.
The schizophrenic movement of the wind blows away the dust of her clay fingers that is streaked across the page; the color reminds me of her neck, of the mole that rests like a stone beneath her trachea. I wonder what she’s doing, if she’s pacing between the rocks, between the wild personalities of tumbleweed and stinging nettles. I wonder if she’s standing, eyes squinting, staring into the horizon, if I come to her in the shapes of the trees in the distance.
Between cactus thorns and a love poem, she writes me of the Christians. Of their swimming pool baptisms, how their violence hunts in packs. She sends pamphlets from Jehovah, cut outs for eyeballs, vaginas for faces; I hear her laughter through their lips before it turns to a scream. She spits four-letter words at their god-fearing gospel then tells me she loves me.
I want the thickness of her voice, the caramel of her accent. I want to capture the desert lizard tattooed around her hand. I wanted to suck los nopales from her tongue, get close to her. But all I have are my fingers on her letters, her two licks and the sealing of an envelope.
-Mai Doan