Lauren Mallett

Porfa

I’ll have Emiliano Zapata. Handing me half a mango
in the bath. My sash of bullets draped over the chair next
to the door and I bite the fruit from its skin.
Nevermind su bigote and how its ends uncurl,
the caracoles of soap and I don’t even brush the juice
from my chin. Nevermind the matte Nochebuena
blooms outside the window. Would I mind and quit
at being soldadera? This bristly chasm between apropiada
and appropriated? Is that tree even a species?
Hoist one leg at a time out of the tub. Care not to slip
on the tile—sus bordes, no importa—you’re rushing
to the train. Your shirtdress is on backwards. Nevermind
the bath scene was first read to you by a man and you
went ahead and made yourself protagonista. You landed
on the poinsettias, the heft of the sash. Mija, wipe the mecos
running down your leg. He was a jewelry maker from Cuernavaca,
you missed your bus, and when you bought the new boleto
you too had to begin with the two words for please.

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Lauren Mallett’s (she/her/hers) poems appear or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Passages North, Fugue, RHINO and other journals. She lives on the occupied homelands of the Clatsop and Chinook tribes, also known as Oregon’s north coast. www.laurenmallett.com