Colinas de Santa Fe, Veracruz, México
Drive a six-foot metal rod into the ground.
With each click-clack of the hammer,
dig the cross-shaped bar deeper into the soil.
Pull out the rod.
Bring it close to your nose.
Inhale. Wet earth or remains?
Exhume 253 bodies, none of them yours.
Yellow your skin.
Grow your hair waist-length.
Image Credits: Adam Jones
Norma Liliana Valdez
Norma Liliana Valdez is the author of the chapbook Preparing the Body (YesYes Books, 2019). A member of the Macondo Writers Workshop
and a CantoMundo fellow, her poems appear in Waxwing Literary
Journal, The Los Angeles Review, PANK Magazine, and Tinderbox
Poetry Journal, among others. She has been awarded residencies and
fellowships from Hedgebrook, Under the Volcano International, and
Community of Writers.
