The border is a line that marks difference. On one side, the American narrative; on the other, the Mexican narrative. Identity, for me, functions like the borderlands: a site of hybridization, of interlingualism.


The Poet Behind the Page

The Poetry Chapbook



Excerpt from "Poem after Frieda Kahlo’s Painting The Broken Column"

 

1
On a bench, beneath a candle-lit window
whose sheer curtains resemble honey
sliding down a jar, Kahlo lifts her skirts.

A brown monkey chews a tobacco leaf
between her calves, tail brushing her thigh.
A skirt falls, its hem splashes on the concrete

like urine. A ruby ring on her forefinger.
No, the tip of her cigarette. Smoke rising.
The long hair of an old woman drowning.

2
Once a man offered me his heart like a glass of water. No, once…Here’s a joke for you. Why do Mexicans make tamales at Christmas? So they have something to unwrap. A lover told me that. I stared into his eyes believing the brown surrounding his pupils were rings, like Saturn’s. I have to sit down to say this. Once a man offered me his heart and I said no. Not because I didn’t love him. Not because he was a beast or white—I couldn’t love him. Do you understand? In bed while we slept, our bodies inches apart, the dark between our flesh a wick. It was burning down. And he couldn’t feel it.

3
Ask me anything.

more . . . The Poetry Chapbook

 



Eduardo C. Corral holds degrees from Arizona State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, Meridian, MiPOesias, and The Nation. His work has been honored with the New Millennium Writings award, a special mention in the Pushcart Prize anthology,
and the "Discovery"/The Nation award. He recently completed his first poetry collection.


Email Eduardo C. Corral: lorcaloca@aol.com