CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women

Volume 22 Number 3

Summer 2005 

CONTENTS

POETRY
Barbara Leon  6  Day of the Dead/Ciudad Juárez
Annie Mascorro 13   From Over Here
Kesaya E. Noda   14 My Mother Writes a Letter from the Farm, October 21, 2001 

16 Ofuro
18 The Kamisama
Susan Elbe 20  Drought, 1937
Kristen Sandel 65  (Returned) Airmail to the Emirate
Peggy Varnado 66  Formula for the Midpoint
Rebecca Spears  67  Fortune Cookie Journals
Terry Godbey 70  My Grandmother Can See Her Husband’s Grave from Her Front Door
Laura Long 72   Ode to Nurse Lila
73 West Virginia Catholic Girl
Hossannah Dela Peña 90  the emptiness of a bed half full
Ronda Broatch 92   Wild Honey
Jan Ball 93   I Wanted to Dance with My Father
Cheryl Wood Ruggiero 94  laundry sins
Susan L. Miller 96 Climbing Alice
Mary Makofske 98 Out of Hate’s Country
Patrice Vecchione 99 Pregnant

PROSE
Carol Robison 8 Sharks
Linda P. Adams 22 The Year I Went Insane
Margot C. Kadesch 49 Lacunae
Louisa Peck 74 Rachmanioff Lives
Kimberly Jones 102 The End of Summer

ART
Brenda Roper 33 Fecundity
Carolee S. Clark 34 In Thought
35 Suzanne
Chamindika Wanduragala 36 Untitled #1
36 Hiding a Larger Breath
37 Untitled #3
38 Communication Range Beyond the Sun
Sarah Graham 40 Dual Bird with Red Shoes
41 Coupled Sleep
Debra Ramsey 42 Crossing
42 Transformation
43 Strength of the Thread
44 Woman in the Currents
Donna Dodson 46 Pregnant Owl
47 Red Rabbit
48 Caribbean Queen

BOOK REVIEWS
Alice Ann Eberman 109 The Girl with Bees in Her Hair by Eleanor Rand Wilner
Pam Crow 111 Blood Silk by Paulann Petersen
Claire Keyes 112 Poems : New & Selected by Marianne Boruch
Amontaine Woods 113 My Jim by Nancy Rawles
Mary Zelinka 115 Leadville by Gillian Klucas
Cielo Lutino 117 The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

MEMORIAM
120 Ronley Jay Duncan

CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES
123

 Poetry Excerpt

  Day of the Dead/Ciudad Juárez

                                          For the murdered women of the
                                          maquiladora zone—370 and still counting.

Entice them back this festive day.
Lay a lush carpet of marigold petals
that they may follow the fragrance home.

Celebrate them with ofrendas.
On Claudia’s altar, a packet of letters home
her childish scrawl on lined blue paper. Mama, Papi
I found a job in the maquila--$4.65 a day.
And all night in the city, lights like you’ve never seen!

For Irma, craft a calavera, dress her bones
in style. Let her kick her feet in platform shoes
swing her hips in designer jeans
like the ones she stitched for 20 cents each
the same new-denim smell
steamed, pressed, trucked away
to fill the stores up north.

For Paloma, fastest hands in the auto parts assembly,
a red toy convertible. Let her clutch
the steering wheel in her skeleton fingers
black hair lifted by the breeze, as she speeds
miles from the factory, the colonia’s
leaked sewage streets
the dreaded path to the midnight bus
last place she was seen.

For all the slim-waisted, long-haired girls,
display photographs
edged in ribbon and lace.
Show the stuff of their working lives--
sewing needles, coated wire, laser disks
factory sirens, bathroom passes, inspectors’
roving hands, doctors’ notes and dead fetuses.

Burn copal to ward off evil. Let candles flame
everywhere, to chase away the night demons.
Prepare soft cloths and pots of rose water
to mop the sweaty brows, bathe rope burns
and bite marks.

Gather families at the gravesites.
Let them scrub the stones clean, sweep away
jagged amber glass, crushed cigarette butts
dried semen and rusty knives, then
lay picnics on bright spreads.
Let the living and dead feast together
on their favorite molés, anise-scented bread
tamarind drinks to refresh
parched throats and swollen tongues.

And for the ones still wandering, body parts
strewn through the desert, decomposed in plastic
carried on coyotes’ teeth, give them sweets.
Mortal bones exchanged for sugar skulls
marzipan coffins where they may sleep.

Barbara Leon

Originally published in Porter Gulch Review, Spring 2004.

Copyright  2005 by CALYX, Inc., a non-profit corporation. No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced without written permission from CALYX.