Hernán Cortez re-members Malinche

Hernán Cortez re-members Malinche

México Tenochtitlan- August 17, 1521

I met God at her center

and prayed to the opening

of her lower lips. I became

a hermit reading the sacred

etched texts on her flesh

to find a new spelling of

my name at her navel

where I rendered

her in carnelian red

She is the center of the universe,

I do not care what Galileo will preach,

She is the real sun,

gravitating my heart

pulse to my dune’s edge

and swallows me holy

I could not stop the sin-

king, sliding bare skin,

my being, whole and

rushing into blood alchemy

I will sail in her

veins for all eternity

Sex is the real battlefield.

She is unafraid of my unveiled

sword, I failed to erase that

deep indigo hummingbird

written on her chest,

When I come closer, her eyes

become obsidian mirror glaze,

I willingly drown in her water

I anchor myself as deep as

our ships first embraced

the Veracruz coast

Each night she refuses

to translate her body

as I navigate her

labyrinth shores

until she rips

Each night she kills me

as I try to grow inside her to

cross her skin

She has not forgiven herself

for Tenochtitlan, the broken

bodies falling off the pyramides

her mother offered corn to so

the sun would return

to light the sky

each morning,

She can not forget

her translations led to

Cuauhtemoc’s feet burning,

tied to a tree

crying to the moon

That night I kissed

her coffee skin,

her body- a coffin

unwilling to sing

back the symphony my

fingers played over

the arc of her neck

as I knotted her in

my Spanish tongue

The day she finally left

she said would only speak

to me again after I learn to believe

Quetzal feathers are the real gold

and I am cured from the curse

that made our boats pregnant

with metals to praise the dead messiah

hanging over the heart of my queen

Wouldn’t you rather fly

as a hymned eagle

dreamt by the sun ?