(for Randy Conner)
I am a vine
creeping down the moon.
I have no keeper.
I fall into this world.
The Mother, catching me in her net,
entangles me in human flesh.
I wander on a path
come to the patio of a ruined temple.
Flutes lure me to a fire.
A litany fondles my hip
horns pin me to the ground.
To cast out the brute,
I shake earth, air, fire, and water
in the lunar sistrum.
I devour the roses of Isis.
I pass
through the gate
come to the path on the left,
past the wellspring
beside the gnarled cypress.
At the crossroads
where her spirit shocks
she comes sweeping
through the night,
spirits and hounds baying behind her.
Her wings keep me warm.
Three jackals
watch with me.
I am the gate
demons and vanquished gods invade
then pass into this world to get to you.
I do not want to keep to myself,
but none see the brand on my forehead
save you and the few who can look me in the face.
I pass unseen, my shawl wrapped around me.
Choosing to walk alone, I return to myself.
Daily, the present menaces,
Splinters fly from my eyes,
pricking liars and fools.
Thorns and thistles grow in my hair
drawing the blood
of you who embrace me.
I am mad
but I choose this madness.
The godhead is unstrung.
He has a grudge against me and all flesh.
He rejects the dark within the flame.
As for me, I renounce my kinship
with the whole and all its parts,
renounce my fealty to nature.
A black cock crows three times.
Casting no shadow,
I wake from drunkenness
holding my own hand.
Cloaked in panther skin,
I sound the maddening cymbals.
I slip my knots and garments,
utter the first no.
It begins where it ends.
Memory
ignites like kindling
the time when I filled the sky.
Parting brought death.
Now, I drum on the carcass of the world
creating crises to recall my name.
The filth you relegate to Satan,
I absorb, I convert.
When I dance it burgeons out
as song.
I seek la diosa
darkly awesome.
In love with my own kind,
I know you and inspirit you.
All others flee from me.
I buff the old scratches from bone.
With flint knife, cut in our marks.
I keep the moon from bleeding
and the sun from turning black.
But water drains from the earth.
Terror seizes me.
Death's warm hand on me.
Night, unfurl your wings
and your long hair over me.
Bring your breast
to my mouth and never wean me.
With chant I break the spell,
disperse the watchers from the gates.
Wake the sleepers.
With my fist I rive
a hole in the wall:
the winds rush in,
I am the gate no longer.
You are the gate.
The deep below, the deep above.
The waters overflow.
It begins where it ends,
I descend into black earth,
dark primordial slime,
no longer repellent to me,
not confining.
The four wnids
fire welds splinter with splinter.
I find my kindred spirits.
The moon eclipses the sun.
La diosa lifts us.
We don the feathered mantle
and charge our fate.
- Gloria Anzaldúa