HELENA ZAMUDIO
this isn’t a nativity scene
Sometimes, streets in Mexico are named after holidays. We live on days– we’re stuck in time. I’m stuck on September 16th.
Abuela lights the candles around the house,
baby Jesus kills me from his crib.
Mary cradles her emptied stomach
& god is nowhere to be fucking found.
I embroider my hand into Mary’s—
she was never god’s or joseph’s,
She was mine—slipping between my skin
& muscle, nestling herself in my breast
Until all you could see was the blood
embracing Her fingers, fat melting
Into Her mouth. She sucks me dry
til frankincense marrows my bones.
Catholic cookbooks teach me recipes
teach me to be human—prim & pauper
I slice Rosca de Reyes into my body, bite
into the neck of Jesus and break my teeth
Down to a jagged mockery of a crown—
i almost mouth an equis into his skull.
I sense he would let me break
every bone in his body if I asked to.
I sense he knows I’d never return
the favor & give up Mary like he did.
Every Jesus X hang on nooses above pine
& porcelain, the mantles bear gilded rings
Ringing in the new year: icicles
& rosaries aren’t so different after all—
Slipping out of palms, of trees, of homes,
needling posture into spines like felted deer.
Headlights boring into light of day, spinning
heads dizzy as I lay on September 16th.
Is that why streets bear the burden of days
& roadkill stitches the sidewalks together?
The skinny roads of Bethlehem
painted in the blood of marriage & child.
The skinny house on September 16th
painted in the spit of a God that hates—
Helena Zamudio is an emerging poet and highschool student in Arizona. She has been nationally recognized by YoungArts and NCTE for her poetry, and is an alumni of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship program. When she’s not writing poetry about her Sims 4 families, she loves dancing to k-pop.