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    Lima :: Limón
    Lima :: Limón
    Lima :: Limón
    Ebook104 pages48 minutes

    Lima :: Limón

    By Natalie Scenters-Zapico

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    About this ebook

    In her striking second collection, Natalie Scenters-Zapico sets her unflinching gaze once again on the borders of things. Lima :: Limón illuminates both the sweet and the sour of the immigrant experience, of life as a woman in the U.S. and Mexico, and of the politics of the present day. Drawing inspiration from the music of her childhood, her lyrical poems focus on the often-tested resilience of women. Scenters-Zapico writes heartbreakingly about domestic violence and its toxic duality of macho versus hembra, of masculinity versus femininity, and throws into harsh relief the all-too-normalized pain that women endure. Her sharp verse and intense anecdotes brand her poems into the reader; images like the Virgin Mary crying glass tears and a border fence that leaves never-healing scars intertwine as she stares down femicide and gang violence alike. Unflinching, Scenters-Zapico highlights the hardships and stigma immigrants face on both sides of the border, her desire to create change shining through in every line. Lima :: Limón is grounding and urgent, a collection that speaks out against violence and works toward healing.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateJun 18, 2019
    ISBN9781619321984

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      Book preview

      Lima : - Natalie Scenters-Zapico

      Lima Limón :: Infancia

      I want to be the lemons in the bowl

      on the cover of the magazine. I want

      to be round, to be yellow, to be pulled

      from branches. I want to be wax, to be

      white with pith, to be bright, to be zested

      in the corners of a table. I want you

      to say my name like the word: lemon.

      Say it like the word: limón. Undress me

      in strands of rind. I want my saliva to be

      citrus. I want to corrode my husband’s

      wedding ring. I want to be a lemon

      with my equator marked in black ink —

      small dashes to show my shape: pitted & convex.

      Neomachismo

      To see if you’re still alive, heat caramel in a pan until it spits asteroids on your arms. Take good care of your burns. Your scars should never last longer than two years. Pain needs a clean slate to play on.

      Wear a red dress & let men pull at it all night. Your desire: to have your hair pulled, to bleed, to lick your wounds like a dog in heat.

      Say you’re sorry for getting angry. Say you’re sorry for being angry. Say you’re sorry that you’re angry.

      Anger is the emotion of men. By adding sugar, lime & salt you can turn anger into sadness as a good woman should.

      Stop sobbing, it’s ugly. Instead, emulate the glass tears on virgins who look up to the men who bruised their bodies.

      Tell your man: You’re machista. Have him repeat this statement back to you in html.

      Like in the movies let the pot boil over, until he screams he’ll send you back home to your mother. When he can’t stop laughing, laugh too—become the foreigner who doesn’t understand.

      ¡Ay pena penita pena! Listen to Lola Flores & search for the pain between your eyes on WebMD. Don’t feel bad if you sob in one room while he reads about aporia in the next.

      Like la Lola Flores, you have beautiful hair; unlike la Lola, sell it to make rent.

      Laugh when he says: Mi’ja, cabróna, ingrata & eres mía. Assure him he’s not turning into his father.

      When he says you are letting this happen, don’t reply. Put his fingers in your mouth & hold your breath when he asks: Who taught you to hate yourself?

      In the Age of Los Zetas

      Saint Michael hangs demons

      with velvet thread & opens

      a torrent of tissue flames

      in a scene created in a box

      of Altoids. Saint Michael bites

      a cracked enamel heart,

      too big for his tiny

      plastic cleft to carry.

      I am in mourning

      in the bloodiest year

      of Mexican history. I stare

      at Saint Michael, my little

      automaton, & feed myself

      week-old bread that crumbles

      my teeth to dirt. I save my oral

      rubble to sell as earth

      for the burial of men.

      Men who only value

      a woman for her extra rib,

      that holy thing that breaks

      & heals without a cast.

      Men who want to fill

      my body with a clutter

      of spiders, eager to eat the flies

      that swarm my uterine lining.

      In the age of Los Zetas, I only take

      what I can carry: a reliquary

      of clots—all the children

      I’ve failed to bear because

      I’ve been hit by men who

      in their thirst for me, strangled

      a flash flood into our

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