 Cruzando la frontera #17
Somos seis: La Borrega, José, Ariel, Gabriel, Roberto y yo, todos de doce años. Después de la escuela caminamos desde la escuela en El Paso hasta nuestras casas en Juárez, una costumbre que se nos hace lo más natural, caminar de un país a otro. Primero pasamos por debajo del puente ferrocarril cerca de la escuela y seguimos por las vías hasta llegar a la calle Stanton y de ahí hasta el puente, parando de vez en cuando en una tienda a fisgonear. Ya cerca del puente y para ahorrarnos los cinco centavos del cruce, mandamos a Gabriel, que es él de más suerte y él más atrevido (por no decir más insistente) a pedir un aventón (preferiblemente una troca le decimos). Nosotros esperamos en un callejón. Cuando un conductor dice que sí, corremos y nos subimos todos a la caja de la troca. Rogelio me agarra del cinto y me jala abordo ya que soy el último y la troca avanza mientras todos reímos de la aventura. Nos gusta ir en la caja por el fresco de la brisa. Además, nos gusta ir viendo la actividad del puente: la gente que camina con sus compras en mano; los carros avanzando lentamente en la línea, pitando de vez en cuando; los vendedores de periódicos, incluso el niño como de seis años al que todos le dicen Güerito y al cuál la gente le chifla desde sus carros para que les venda el periódico, ¡Güerito, ven! y corre entre los carros como toreador y nunca nadie lo atropella. Vemos los otros vendedores ambulantes vendiendo aguas y dulces y cigarros; los que limpian los vidrios; las Indias Tarahumaras que piden Kórima, sus bebes a sus espaldas envueltos en sus chales coloridos; el limosnero sin piernas que usa muletas y sus rodillas arrastran en ritmo ya sea delante de él o detrás de él para caminar. Vemos al otro limosnero sin piernas en su diablito de mecánico que se impulsa con sus manos enguantadas sobre el pavimento hasta parar al lado de un carro y alza su lata de aluminio a las ventanas del carro para que le avienten monedas y suena la moneda en el bote contra las otras monedas y el limosnero da una sonrisa de dientes ralos y les dice que Dios los bendiga. Mientras vemos todo guardamos silencio como si estuviéramos viendo un acto de circo o tal vez un acto sagrado. Al llegar al otro lado, brincamos fuera de la caja y recuperamos el habla y le damos las gracias al señor y empezamos a caminar otra vez, el sol ya bajando en el cielo. Ya casi llegando al barrio paramos en el Parque Monumental a buscar al señor de las papitas. Él nos ve y nos dice ¡muchachos! y empuja su carrito hacia nosotros e igual corremos hacia el diciéndole ¡señor! y nos encontramos. Le compramos tres bolsas de papitas con limón y chile y se nos hace agua la boca al verlo exprimir el limón y echarle la salsa roja a las papitas. Nos repartimos las bolsitas entre los seis y le compramos al igual tres sodas, las cuales también nos repartimos, asegurándonos de limpiar la botella con la mano después de cada trago. Y nos chupamos los dedos al acabarnos las papitas. Y así de rápido parece que el cansancio se nos quita, como si las papitas fueran mágicas, lo cual tal vez sí lo son. De ahí ya mi barrio queda cerca y nos quedamos los tres que vivimos ahí y los demás siguen caminando, aunque a veces toman un camión. Llego a casa ya casi al oscurecer y al entrar a casa saludo a mis papas y me lavo las manos y ceno. Me pregunta mi mamá qué si estoy cansado y le digo que no, que me gusta caminar y que es una aventura cruzar el puente, ir de un país a otro. © Jaime Herrera ***Jaime H. Herrera is currently a Professor of English at Mesa Community College. Jaime is a product of the Juárez/El Paso border, a place he holds dear and which embodies who he is, as much Mexican as American, as much Mexicano (and mexinaco) as he is estadounidense (and gringo). He is bicultural and bilingual (and speaks a good Spanglish too). He knows that the border is a space that cannot be fenced. La frontera es un espacio que no se puede cercar. He loves translation, the back and forth between the two languages. Also. he writes his own poetry in both English and Spanish and has written a novel (as of yet unpublished), tentatively titled This is not Juárez. When he dies, he wants his ashes spread right in the middle of the bridge that connects Juárez and El Paso, his ashes blowing in both directions.
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 Cruzando la frontera #13
Papá tiene nuevo trabajo del otro lado en unos corrales de ganadería y nos mudamos a El Paso por primera vez. Tengo cinco años y cruzamos por el puente del centro con todas nuestras cosas. Empiezo la escuela en un kínder llamado Fairyland y para mí es como estar en un mundo de encanto en donde no entiendo el idioma y todos los niños son rubios y hablan constantemente pero no entiendo lo que dicen y una niña güerita me toma de la mano el primer día y eso me hace sentir especial. Pero papá pierde su trabajo en la ganadería porque mi tío se tomo dos reses sin permiso y regresamos por el mismo puente del centro otra vez a Juárez. La estancia nos duró un año. Pero en ese año pasaron dos cosas transcendentes: Me enamoré de la güerita de la escuela. Y el idioma que era ajeno para mi ya no es ajeno. © Jaime Herrera  Cruzando la frontera #4
Por Jaime Herrera Unos días después, al salir del hospital, mamá insiste en caminar y se levanta de la silla de ruedas que empuja papá. Recuerdo que papá (que estoy descubriendo es todo un bromista) se sienta de momento en la silla y me carga en su regazo. Vamos de picada y empezamos a conseguir velocidad y mamá grita que nos vamos a matar. Papá nos para con sus botas de vaquero, ríe y me agarra en brazos y nos subimos al carro. Me da un poco de susto todo esto que es nuevo para mí, aunque parece que me gusta la velocidad y tomo aliento como para llorar y me dice papá que no llore y no lloro y veo su sonrisa debajo del bigote. Ya en línea en el puente, distingo por primera vez el azul del cielo y lo blanco de las nubes y siento el viento soplar un poco frío, pero estoy envuelto rico como tamal en una cobija que tejió mi abuela. Muevo la cabeza lentamente y veo a mamá y papá. Oigo voces en el puente gritar “garrapiñados” y “cigarros” y “¡El Mexicano!” y “¡El Fronterizo!” y mi papa a alguien le dice “Güerito, ven”. Oigo el tintineo de monedas. Oigo el pitido de carros en el bullicio y la cacofonía del puente, ruidos y sensaciones a las que me impondría a través de toda una vida. Es así como mi cuerpo y mi ser empieza a acostumbrarse a cruzar la frontera. Y pienso que hace unos días anteriores, en útero, era mexicano. Y ahora, ex útero, soy estadounidense. Pero soy las dos cosas. Esa condición, estoy viendo, será eterna en mí. Reconocer esto me hace sonreír una sonrisa Mona Lisa y mis papas notan mi sonrisa y se dicen el uno al otro que soy un bebé muy feliz. © Jaime Herrera ***Jaime H. Herrera is currently a Professor of English at Mesa Community College. Jaime is a product of the Juárez/El Paso border, a place he holds dear and which embodies who he is, as much Mexican as American, as much Mexicano (and mexinaco) as he is estadounidense (and gringo). He is bicultural and bilingual (and speaks a good Spanglish too). He knows that the border is a space that cannot be fenced. La frontera es un espacio que no se puede cercar. He loves translation, the back and forth between the two languages. Also. he writes his own poetry in both English and Spanish and has written a novel (as of yet unpublished), tentatively titled This is not Juárez. When he dies, he wants his ashes spread right in the middle of the bridge that connects Juárez and El Paso, his ashes blowing in both directions.  Cruzando la frontera #3 Por Jaime Herrera El día en que nací, crucé otra vez sin papeles la frontera en ruta al hospital. Mamá y papá me llevan, más bien mamá me lleva (dentro de ella) y papá maneja. Papá según entiendo maneja rápido (no manejes tan rápido, estoy bien, le decía mamá, olvidándose que papá, en su día, había sido corredor de carros y aún le gustaba correr). A mí me divierte la velocidad y sonrío y doy pequeñas patadas y mamá se frota el estómago. Pienso que mis papas son coyotes cruzándome ilegalmente al norte y me da risa tal idea y trago líquido y toso y mamá le dice a papá que su hijo esta un poco inquieto. Siento el carro disminuir velocidad al llegar al puente, buena cosa ya que tenía la cabeza hacia abajo y junto con la carrera de papá me estoy mareando. Pero no vomito. En la línea, me chupo el dedo y me duermo en mi espacio, que ya está muy reducido, pero no del todo incómodo. Tengo todo lo que quiero todo el tiempo y eso me hace sentir rico, feliz, acobijado y querido en mi acuoso hogar. Y así duermo por buen rato, feliz de la vida. Pero como todo, las cosas suelen cambiar. Despierto al sentir parar el carro y oigo algo como lo que pensé serían puertas y más puertas y voces en esa lengua ajena. Siento movimiento rápido y luego nada de movimiento y mamá parada y luego sentada y parada otra vez y al fin acostada. Oigo por dentro el fluir de líquido hacia no sé dónde y afuera voces apresuradas. Discierno por primera vez un poco de luz natural y entonces me muevo hacia la luz - aun sin querer - y veo una abertura de luz. La luz se abre más y más en un tiempo que parece a la misma vez lento y precipitado y con ritmo de respiración, pero agitado. De repente veo tanta luz que me ciego momentáneamente. Al mismo tiempo oigo y siento agua tibia que sale en un whoosh tremendo alternando con el entrar de un aire frio. Tengo frio por primera vez en mi vida, en parte porque no visto ropa (aunque antes no importaba: vivía como en un Jardín de Edén). Se me va el aliento y me duelen los pulmones y no puedo respirar y me muevo como en lo que descubrí después era un resbaladero. No quiero salir, pero alguien me jala del cuerpo de mamá y el cuerpo de mamá lo siento empujar en conjunto y esto me confunde. Hago una gran toma de aire y mis pulmones se expanden hasta casi explotar y siento el gran forzar de aire hacia adentro y se termina de correr mi líquido y salgo hacia no sé dónde. Siento al salir el cortar de la cuerda que me conectaba a mamá. Es mi última conexión no solo a mi espacio, pero a mi mamá (al menos eso pensé dentro de mi trauma). Y entro a un mundo nuevo - raro y extraño - y alguien dice “niño” y luego la palabra “boy”. En mi confusión y mi dolor lloro y abro los ojos desesperadamente. Logro identificar a mamá y papá y al que llaman doctor. Dicen mis papas: mira la cantidad de pelo, que mechón tan bello y negro y aceitoso - como de cuervo - lo cual parece que confunde un poco al doctor – a juzgar por su cara - él acostumbrado tal vez a bebes güeritos sin pelo, pero lo oigo decir Yes. Crow. Yes. Frente a tantas cosas nuevas, chillo como nunca antes había chillado, en parte por la sensación del aire que quema mis pulmones y porque no hay ya mi liquido amortiguador y también porque me han sacado de mamá y porque veo por primera vez seres extraños y porque mis papas lloran (aunque después me dijeron que lloraban de felicidad). Pero más que nada sollozo porque siento por primera vez el mundo frío y sé en ese nasciente momento de luz y de sufrir que eventualmente la muerte sería mi destino y tendría que enfrentarla. Y entonces mamá y papá me toman en sus brazos y me dicen no llore y ya ya ya. Y me sosiego. © Jaime Herrera ***Jaime H. Herrera is currently a Professor of English at Mesa Community College. Jaime is a product of the Juárez/El Paso border, a place he holds dear and which embodies who he is, as much Mexican as American, as much Mexicano (and mexinaco) as he is estadounidense (and gringo). He is bicultural and bilingual (and speaks a good Spanglish too). He knows that the border is a space that cannot be fenced. La frontera es un espacio que no se puede cercar. He loves translation, the back and forth between the two languages. Also. he writes his own poetry in both English and Spanish and has written a novel (as of yet unpublished), tentatively titled This is not Juárez. When he dies, he wants his ashes spread right in the middle of the bridge that connects Juárez and El Paso, his ashes blowing in both directions.   Cruzando la frontera #2
La segunda vez que crucé la frontera ilegalmente fue ese mismo día, acompañado por mis padres y por lo que me imagino es la luz tenue del atardecer en la frontera. Sé que hemos cruzado el puente, que estamos del otro lado (y aunque aún no existían las preguntas, me pregunto ¿Del otro lado de qué? Y si hay “el otro lado”, tiene que haber “este lado”, ¿no? ¿Y que del medio de los dos lados? ¿Qué hay allí?). Me causa un revuelo el oír voces ajenas fuera de mí (aunque el concepto del mí y del otro aún no eran parte de mi ser: el mí y el otro eran lo mismo). Las voces dicen cosas que no entiendo, el ritmo diferente, las raíces otras. Y pienso (dentro de mi cuna liquida) que no es tanto que no entiendo lo que dicen, aunque eso es cierto, pero es más cierto que nunca antes he oído esa forma ajena de hablar. Oigo a mi padre decir, “Is that right?” en lo que después reconocería como su acento tejano/mexicano. Y oirlo hablar otro idioma me conmociona. En un momento Munchiano, me agarro con mis manitas los lados de mi cabeza. Abro los ojos a tal grado que pienso que se van a desorbitar y hago la más grande “O” posible con mi boquita. Trago demasiado de mi liquido y siento que casi me ahogo. El shock lingüístico y sicológico y existencial es demasiado. Lloro, mis lágrimas derramándose y disolviéndose en el líquido. Sigo las lágrimas con mis ojitos, ojitos que aun no ven, pero bien pueden distinguir dentro de ese líquido. Veo las lágrimas flotar, los cristales dentro de las lágrimas poco a poco disolviéndose dentro del líquido, dejando en mi boca el sabor inconfundible de sal y la clara sensación de dolor. Siento entonces las manos de mamá sobar su estómago y decir ya ya ya ya y me para el llanto. Jadea mi respiración por un momento pero pasa el susto. Me acurruco en mi posición de siempre, me chupo el dedo y me duermo. Mientras duermo tengo mi primer pesadilla, en la cual no veo casi nada. Siento que floto en el espacio, un espacio de tenues luces y tenues sombras. Oigo las voces de las personas que me van a traer al mundo. Bien. Reconozco. Sonrío. Me chupo el dedo. Pero entonces un brusco cambio (y la parte de la pesadilla). Las voces cambian y hablan en esa lengua rara y ajena que nunca antes había oído pero que oí ese mismo día cuando crucé por primera y segunda vez la frontera. Me pregunto a mí mismo (un mí mismo que, al igual, aún no existía): ¿Qué pasa? ¿Quiénes son estas personas? ¿Qué hablan? ¿Qué dicen? Puedo decir que fue mi primera experiencia bilingüe. Y es cuando se me suelta otra vez el llanto. Ese día supe que el llanto es del dolor de cruzar de un mundo real a otro mundo real, de un mundo metafísico a otro mundo metafísico, de un mundo linguistico a otro mundo linguistico. Y entiendo que el puente es la manera de cruzar. © Jaime Herrera  La fe de la frontera.
Cruzando la frontera #1 Aun no nacía la primera vez que crucé la frontera ilegalmente. Vamos por el puente libre rumbo a El Paso mi papá y mi mamá (conmigo en utero). Aunque siento la misma vaga y familiar sensación de estar flotando en el líquido alrededor de mí, al mismo tiempo siento el parar y seguir del carro, primero inclinándose levemente hacia arriba, después de tiempo nivelándose, y al fin inclinándose levemente hacia abajo. El movimiento primero me causa empinarme en mi líquido – cabizbajo - después me enderezo y me vierto hacia abajo. Me doy vueltas, causándome desorientación y mareo, un vómito claro saliendo de mí que pronto se pierde en el liquido alrededor de mí. Fuera de mí, fuera del cuerpo de mi madre, fuera del carro, puedo oir el ronroneo de los carros, los ocasionales pitidos, las voces de mis papás (las había oído anteriormente, las conocía ya, aun cuando todas las voces me sonaban amortiguadas dentro del liquido). Otras voces gritan (sabía que eran otras, pero me eran familiar su sonido y su ritmo). Puedo oler el humo de los escapes de los carros y lo veo entrar por la ventana abierta del carro, por la boca de mi madre y sigo el humo hasta tragarlo y sentirlo en mis pulmones. Me mareo y toso levemente y trago un poco de mi líquido, el cúal es como agua bendita, pienso, porque me recupero instantaneamente. Confortado por el movimiento y los ruidos a mi alrededor, me chupo el dedo gordo del pie izquierdo. Veo a mi alrededor y no veo nada además de lo que había visto igual los últimos meses: La lagañosa claridad del día. Me acurruco en mi eterna posición de feto y duermo mientras terminamos de cruzar el puente. Ya al fin de la linea, el carro para por un momento y despierto. Oigo murmurar “American”, primero mi mamá y después mi papá. “American.” Como si por conjuro mágico, la palabra nos libera de la linea. Agarramos velocidad. Y puedo sentir que nos hemos internado en otro mundo. © Jaime Herrera ***Jaime H. Herrera is currently a Professor of English at Mesa Community College. Jaime is a product of the Juárez/El Paso border, a place he holds dear and which embodies who he is, as much Mexican as American, as much Mexicano (and mexinaco) as he is estadounidense (and gringo). He is bicultural and bilingual (and speaks a good Spanglish too). He knows that the border is a space that cannot be fenced. La frontera es un espacio que no se puede cercar. He loves translation, the back and forth between the two languages. Also. he writes his own poetry in both English and Spanish and has written a novel (as of yet unpublished), tentatively titled This is not Juárez. When he dies, he wants his ashes spread right in the middle of the bridge that connects Juárez and El Paso, his ashes blowing in both directions.  Because the Dead
I was late for the funeral. The cathedral tilted, and once I started walking under its arch, it grew and became like a city unto itself. People advanced through the large wooden doors, dressed in dark suits and skirts, traveling in pairs, like animals disembarking from Noah’s ark. I also wore grey (with black pumps), and I knew it wouldn’t matter that I was late for the funeral. Although I had never been here before, I knew I’d blown across the sea. (Maybe that’s why it took so long to get there. Maybe that’s why I was late.) I knew I had to arrive, but it didn’t matter that I was late. Only that I appear. I had the vantage point of an angel’s--peering down from the gargoyles. It didn’t matter that I was late for the funeral because it was mine. All of us attending, at some point, kneeling in the pews, genuflecting in the aisle, lying still in the casket. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, it was like a litany of the saints: Harvey, Irma, Jose, Lidia, and then Maria slaughtered Juan. No one survived. It didn’t matter that I was late for the funeral because the dead are still filing through. *** Tri-Angles The guy with the red beard doesn’t believe in angels. He goes out of his way to announce this, inserts it into the writers’ group as casually as kneeling down to tie a shoe. But he knows I am the one who knows angels, I read my poems about them the night before the day of his proclamation. He must be thinking of them literally (the angels not the writers). He must think that I think of them flying in white robes and halos. He doesn’t think about the angels formed from ashes and acid, rancid trash and smack. The guy with the red beard writes about drug culture and doesn’t believe in angels as if no user ever hallucinated before. The guy with the red beard has a voice that sounds like a tricycle wheels careening across cracks in the cement—as when a child circles his three wheels over and over the same fractures in the same O, like he’s riding around a cracked circus ring, and the red beard’s cement voice thuds over syllables like VERy and VEdas. This red-bearded guy doesn’t believe in angels, but he’s interested in depicting the ‘dark side of life’– you know, drug culture, and such, because no angel ever drifts around low-down addiction – angels only dance on clouds swathed in glorious beams of light. © Kimberly Williams  The Man Who Almost Wrote a Poem In his youth, he worked first on the title. He wrote it out longhand on yellow tablet paper: The Poem. He looked at it, crossed it out. He tried “13” as a title. But he wasn’t sure if 13 was technically a number? a word? He spent months on the title: Trapped at Night in The Mercado. The Hungry Dog Chases Me and I Am Paralyzed. No seas pendejo. Losing My Teeth to Lisa. Ode to 43. La casa anaranjada. El hijo de su reputa madre. In his dreams, he saw titles floating in front of him, But they disappeared once he woke, evanescent slipping away, much like the years. He wrote down what he remembered and stuffed the title pages away in his desk drawer. For later, he thought. The titles thus drawered, He turned to the poem. One week he wrote twenty-nine, page-long stanzas of his poem, Each stanza 175 words. He did not sleep. He missed work. He put it all away in his desk drawer, for later revision. In his twenties and into his thirties, he had writer’s block for ten years. He would sit at his desk for hours on end, staring at the blank page, the pen, his hand. He tore the cuticles from his fingers until his fingers bled. He would dab the blood from his fingers with Kleeenex and save the Kleenex in that same drawer. He couldn’t write, but he thought that suffering was good. The Kleenex reminded him and would help him write poetry, perhaps later, when the block lifted. He suffered much, he thought. Good, he thought. Maybe next decade, he thought. Sometimes he wrote in English. Sometimes in Spanish. He would mix the two languages Just like they were mixed in his head, in his limbs, in his mouth and eyes and tongue and brain and in the tattoos he thought he would get but never did. At work, over the course of thirty years, as he sat next to Bob and Vanessa and then others from accounting, he looked over his shoulder and wrote a few lines every day. Bob and Vanessa looked at him, then each other, and rolled their eyes. He could see them roll their eyes, and he sometimes wondered if they had stronger eye muscles than he did. His eyesight was dimming. When it was time to go home, he put the lines in his briefcase and scurried stealthily past the security guard, hoping no one would look in his briefcase. No one ever did. Once home, he emptied his briefcase into his desk drawer. Before bed, he went to the bathroom mirror, looked at his eyes, and did some eye rolls to strengthen his eye muscles. He practiced his eye rolls with his wife, but she did not understand. He slept on the living room couch. One other night, back in his bedroom, he angered his wife when, in the middle of a heated argument, he picked up a pen and a used Kleenex. I have an idea for a poem called The Argument he told her. He wrote what he could on the Kleenex Before she tore the Kleenex from his hand and threw it at him, the Kleenex fluttering like a bird he had seen flysmack into their bedroom window one sunny day, and, much like the bird, it fell and splayed silently at his feet. Eres un pendejo she spat at him as he bent over to pick up the dead Kleenex. He went to his desk, and wrote down Eres un pendejo and Dead Bird. He could hear his wife crying in the bedroom. He stuffed the shredded Kleenex into the drawer. He went to comfort him, but she said ¡No me toques! and closed their bedroom door. He could not help but think “Don’t Touch Me!” could be the title of a poem. He often woke up at night and wrote a word or a line or a reminder on scraps of paper, and they filled his nightstand drawer. One day his wife threw the scraps of paper in the trash. “No!” he screamed to her as he looked at her in horror. He rolled his eyes. She left him then. She left him a goodbye note on a Kleenex, “Hijo de tu reputa madre, you are a big and sorry pendejo.” “Ah, poetic justice,” he thought. He kept the note. Over the course of time he forgot and lost more of the poem than he ever wrote down. He would have dreams that were poems, but as soon as he woke he would forget. He had only the vague feeling of having dreamed the faces and bodies and outstretched arms and eyes and mouths of loved ones. Though the feeling was vague and became vaguer and then lost completely, he thought it was a good feeling. He could not write words to capture what was gone, so he drew pictures to try to capture the dream. He drew red and yellow waves, a half-eaten ear, uneven teeth, a house that leaned almost to the ground, a pinstriped yellow and black jaguar with purple horns, And a tree with leaves from which hung old contortioned blue station wagons that made the branches of the tree bend down to the ground. There was always some interruption, the phone ringing, someone at the door, girlfriends, love, breakups, wives, daughters, work, travel aging parents, friends who entered his life, many of whom left, though some stayed. He would show those who stayed his unfinished poem. They said they liked it. In his mind he saw them rolling their eyes. Dissatisfied, he would stuff the poems in his drawer. One year, he wrote seventeen syllables-- first five, then seven, then five again-- all of it centered on the image of a duck that had lost a wing but could still fly, though in small and tight circles that overlapped, just enough so that the duck covered some small distances but always veered to the left. It would alight, whether in water or on dry land, and it would walk around in circles, dizzy, and it would vomit worms and small partially digested fish and grass. Dizzy Duck he called the poem. He was happy with the poem and thought the title was genius. Someone praised him, said what a wonderful haiku. Pinche madre he said in anger. He did not want a haiku and balled it up and threw it into the drawer. And so it went for the span of his life, which was long and good in some ways, but relatively unremarkable. There were the births and deaths, marriages and divorces, and moments when life seemed crystalline, children going to school, growing up, moving out. Where did they go? There were moments when he didn’t know how people continued to live in the midst of such pain and misery and suffering and horror-- The husband who came home to find his wife, sitting in a chair in the hallway entryway, half her head gone to the shotgun blast, their two boys shot in their beds, blood-soaked pilllows. But these moments passed. He focused on his poetry. One night, late in his life, he went to his desk. He pulled hard on the drawer and looked at it jammed full of papers, bits and pieces of Kleenex (some with dried blood), loose typed sheets, notebooks and journals, some full of writing, many blank, some with numbers, drawings that seemed as if drawn and colored by a child of two--of trees and allegorical animals and cars that flew among oddly shaped clouds, one cloud looking like the prosthetic leg of Santa Anna, or so he thought. There were balled up bits of scraps of paper and napkins, some receipts. Memory cards. Floppy disks. Thumb drives. Passwords. He looked at the contents of the desk drawer with confusion and concentration, the same way he looked when he walked into a room and forgot why he had walked into the room or when he opened the refrigerator and stared inside and then closed the door, having gotten nothing. But this time, when he walked away, he did not suddenly remember that he was looking for his glasses, or orange juice. He sighed and struggled and closed the drawer shut and shuffled to his bedroom. That night he could not sleep. As he lay in bed, he thought of his poem. He was close to something he thought. He felt a faint smile cross his face, his eyes widened and glistened as he finally came upon the way to write the poem. He turned to tell his wife, but she was not there. She had been gone a long time. He wrote himself a note. He would have written Eureka but felt that there must be a better word. Instead he drew a picture of a balloon, a number, some other figure and fell asleep and slept the sleep of a younger man. He dreamed of old girlfriends, of being young, of the first car he ever had, driving it fast in row after row of a junked cars. He dreamed of the first girl he loved. The girl he always loved. He dreamed of living in another country, the sound of the ocean, the smell of mango, the taste of a peso as he pressed his tongue to it, a dog he had, its bark almost waking him. In his dream, his daughters appeared to him and called him “papi,” and they spoke Spanish to him. He dreamed of old friends and in that half-dream state he knew that some of those friends had long been dead. He moaned in his sleep though no one heard him. He dreamed his parents, long ago dead also. In his dream they were young. They called to him, “mi hijo.” The next morning, One of his daughters came to the house to wake him, “Papi,” she said as she walked into the bedroom. He did not respond. She cried as she sat next to his body on the bed and held his cold hand. She looked over and saw the scrap piece of paper on the nightstand, the number 13 scrawled on it. A yellow balloon. A happy face. © Jaime Herrera  Jaime H. Herrera is currently a Professor of English at Mesa Community College. Jaime is a product of the Juárez/El Paso border, a place he holds dear and which embodies who he is, as much Mexican as American, as much Mexicano (and mexinaco) as he is estadounidense (and gringo). He is bicultural and bilingual (and speaks a good Spanglish too). He knows that the border is a space that cannot be fenced. La frontera es un espacio que no se puede cercar. He loves translation, the back and forth between the two languages. Also. he writes his own poetry in both English and Spanish and has written a novel (as of yet unpublished), tentatively titled This is not Juárez. When he dies, he wants his ashes spread right in the middle of the bridge that connects Juárez and El Paso, his ashes blowing in both directions.
 No incident
occurs impetuously. Every occurrence, often for days, or perhaps for years, has reared the embryo of silence within its matrix. Life, perhaps, is the sum total of our misapprehensions. But I am certain, that one must fear two things: The chirping of termites, and, the silence of a woman. ----------------------------------------------------------------- In the frenzied streets, I lost, the child within, the child who had believed the promises of flight with falcon wings. Do not leave me in this relentlessly darksome mystery! Come and seek me in the season of kisses, once again. -------------------------------------------------------------------- In the back of the gloomy window a pair of shoes are waiting to be worn. Come on. --------------------------------------------------- I want to open the window to welcome Spring! But if Spring does not pay me a visit, I will seek refuge before the mirror. The mirror makes me boundless. ----------------------------------------------------- I am searching in vain. I must tell the blisters on my feet that no map in the world provides directions to a lost heart. ----------------------------------------------------- Shun the one who knows you very well. He knows precisely which corner of your heart to target. ----------------------------------------------------- I am that woman whom you lost on a careless night! On a night when desire returned home in despair, you vanished in darksome lies. And rain, washed away all excuses. Today, even the Sun longs for a miracle to shine through the thick clouds. The ice age Is here. --------------------------------------------------------- Do not overlook that which wafts over your face! It is nothing but a gentle kiss from me. -------------------------------------------- Release the string of the kite of your longing. It will soar and land upon my home, I'm certain, for it knows the story of my yearning. ***I was born in an educated family in Iran-Mashhad (one of the cities of Iran) in 1967. My mother always encouraged me to write daily memories, and I did it for long time. When I was 9 years old, I wrote my first poem. Then, I began learning classical literature from the famous teachers besides my routine school studying. The most influential one was Dr. Mohammad Hadi Kamyabi who taught me comparative literature. I took a BA from Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, and my MA from Tehran University. After graduating, I returned to Mashhad and began working in Tejarat Bank. I worked for seventeen years there. For more than the last decade, I was the only female branch Bank manager. The government no longer felt good toward such position, and I also was no longer allowed to write. My first published work is the collection of poems called A Simple Day (2004). And my first novel is The Second Wife (2006). Both books both were censored. Because of my divorce and intensive political and social pressures, I had to immigrate to the USA with my son, Soroush, in 2011. My two novels The Second Wife (2015) and The Lost Identity (2016) have been published in Farsi without censor here in the USA . I have also written some short stories and poems for Toosheh Magazine(2014 to now). I have many lectures, interviews and articles as an Iranian activist, human rights activist, and author, as well as working for the Hamzaban Cultural Institute. Right now I’m living with my son in Phoenix, Arizona  By Kimberly K. Williams
Re-Learning the Alphabet: DNA y DACA I toss our DNA into the blue metal box like I am tossing in a bill. It doesn’t seem right, adding a plastic bag containing two vials of cheek cells to birthday cards and utility payments just to see where I’m ‘from.’ This is my DNA—my very core, I want to say, handle with care. But the United States Postal Service, like most things run by the U.S. government, is here to remind you that there’s nothing special about you. We are too many humans past caring. You don’t count. And someone with DNA like mine (so fair!) and a family story (like mine) three generations distant from Ellis Island will be glad to send you ‘home.’ Even if you were raised here. Even if you went to elementary school at the age of six and suddenly discovered English in your mouth. Even if you used these unexpected sounds to construct bridges between your parents and your grandparents and the country you were raised in. Even once you became used to these sounds and they became part of you, you ascertained along the way that your DNA holds no value, that all along you’d been using the wrong words, that they were as effective as $800 and hand-printed answers on a long form. You count as much as one more bill in the mailbox, even though you’ve already paid. To prove the fatness that three slim generations have gained, we’re going to reveal that we’ve had our fingers crossed behind our backs for decades. We’re going to stamp return to sender across your shoulders, face you south and, whether or not your DNA even formed there, and whether or not there’s a stupid wall blocking your exit, you’ll have to move along. We’re so pleased to send you ‘home’-- © Kimberly Williams |
Kimberly WilliamsKimberly has been fortunate to travel to half the Spanish-speaking countries in the world by the time she was forty. As a traveler into different cultures, she has learned to listen ask questions, and seek points of connections. This page is meant to offer different points of connections between writers, words, ideas, languages, and imaginations. Thank you for visiting. Archives
November 2019
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