Shutters
In the eye of the real hurricane,
there are no shutters. Only you and me,
holding down the stars.
In the junk shop,
I find the Mayan calendar-
wheels of thread spinning through gold pages,
ancient tongues,
eyeballs wrapped in silk.
There are no seers anymore, you say.
Ash Wednesday
In Friday Mass, I fold my skin from the inside out, inhale
the sweetness of black dust from my fingertips.
I will return there one day,
will hang upside down in the violent sky
Watch the priest, his nose cracked and bloody,
the boys who will do whatever he says.
My nails dig into my brain, and the girls
are watching me now, narrowing their eyes,
whispering, Why is she so smart?
Does she know who we go home to
when we die?
Tolma
Dreams float in and out like hot fingers pressed to the window. Acid tongue, red lips swollen with kisses. You left me in a sea of ashes and Egyptian cotton, the spiders lazy and drunk in their webs.
You pull the covers off my head, and in turn,
I turn you to dust.
No Title 333
Something starts to feel off, it’s coming from the floor. A lot of noises- the sound of blood seeping in from under your door, whole buckets of the stuff. Sticky hands
stuck in the crossfire, you’re on the ground and somehow looking up, locked into its big, black chocolate cosmos. You think, did you eat something weird? Is that why this is happening?
Languid, like Snails
My mother stands in the kitchen,
swatting flies, plants vying with open mouths overfed.
They are not the only ones
My brother and I,
plump yarn dolls stuck together with rug burn, stretch marks, odd bones,
stuck together at the trestle table
and she waits for us.
Lana Valdez is a poetess and amateur filmmaker living in Southern California. Her debut chapbook, THE RED DOLL, is available via Bottlecap Press, a haunting tale of girlhood and religious fervor, and her short films are on her YouTube channel. Her work has also appeared in Spectra, The Willawaw Journal, Minute Magazine, and others.
High Horse 