Author: mgmt

Ordinary Grief

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

“How does one commemorate the ordinary?”
~Sherman Alexie
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

flowers are a start
even if they are cut
even if they
too
will die

after all
we do not want our grief
to outlast its usefulness
the way trinkets and mementos
so often do

grief will outlast
the flowers

but they will serve as
a reminder
the cycle continues
there is always
something changing
in our hearts

from decay
a newness can arise
with love
forgiveness
passing of time

shells soften
by the turn of tides
diamonds eventually
crumble to sand

grief shouldn’t
last forever

take time
commemorate this grief
this ordinary
this everyday
but don’t ask it to remain

like the most resilient of roses
grief too will shed its pedals
and lose its glamour

grief will return to earth

it will erode like fallen leafs
like skin and bones
like love
and
in time
it will be forgotten

“Ordinary Grief” is previously published in Anti-Heroin Chic, December 2018.

Seven of Them

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

‎”…all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding…”
~Saul Williams

I

It is not
the first time
a man pressed
lips boldly
against the back
of my hand,
but that quick act,
from a brass jaw
accompanied by
crystal gaze,
caused a blush
from inside out
painting the pink
of vulnerability.

II

On our wedding day,
he took his time,
knowing he had forever.
It wasn’t the kiss
I blew when I rushed
out the door,
or the one he stole when
the late hours
of night crept in.
He could start slow,
lips together before parting,
desire restrained
before release.
It was his hand
on waist,
the curve of fingers
in-between his own.
Not a grip,
but an interweave,
gentle as the
rain leaking from the roof
after the storm.

III

Sitting on the bed
in your hotel room,
you worked all night
to get me there
alone.
I worked all
night to let you.
Safe from peering eyes
with the conversation
drying on our tongues,
you ask,
with the respect of a prayer
for a kiss.
It was a question
I answered hours ago.

IV

Her lips,
the petals of daffodils,
we lacked the grace
of age’s implication
and fumbled foolish,
like children
underwater.

V

I feel the rash
on my face,
a blossom of red where
beard rubbed
sensitive chin
and cheeks.
I imagine my appearance,
like a child eating pie
with hands tied behind back,
cherry filling smeared
left and right.
This is how you reflect
upon my skin.

VI

He thinks she doesn’t
know he’s there,
but she feels
his presence
in the doorway.
She stands
her back to him,
not acknowledging
his stare
as she slips
clothes to floor.
She pretends not
to notice his approach,
until his hand
finds its space upon
bare hip and his
lips caress the
tender top of spine,
she closes her
eyes and exhales.

VII

Part of me knows
it is the last.
It’s why I take
my time,
hovering lips
beside yours,
breathing in your air,
an exchange of vows
or last rites.

 

“Seven of Them” is previously published in Rabbits for Luck (2016).

Shed

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

When I shaved
the skin bloody
on each part of

my body you
ever touched
and the flakes

of dead cells
accumulated,

gathering upon
each other with
the stroke of
worn green towel,

leaving skin
raw and rough,

tender red but
still intact,

that is when
I knew

only time would
shed you.

“Shed” is previously published in To Anyone Who Has Ever Loved a Writer (2014).

La Joven de La Cristiada

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

for Maria de los Angeles

La Cristiada (1926–1929) was a widespread struggle in many central-western Mexican states against the secularist, anti-Catholic, and anticlerical policies put forth by the Mexican government after the revolution. Known as ‘las jovenes,’ young, revolutionary women transported munitions from town to town, often risking their lives in federales’ revision checkpoints.

Carmen used to run guns for the rebellion, but Angela didn’t know that. All Angela knew was her tall, slender cousin, dressed in a dark green dress with deep red lips and a glistening white smile, was taking her and her sister on a picnic.

The first time Carmen surprised the girls with a Sunday picnic was in early April 1927 and the tradition quickly took hold. Every Sunday, after mass, the girls would wait eagerly for Carmen to drive up in her father’s roadster, the black one without a roof and new leather seats. Angela and Nina would sit in the back seat as the wind blew through their hair and the sun warmed their skin, while their lovely cousin drove them to a familiar spot alongside Volcan de Colima to lunch and play.

Often Carmen would meet her lover and leave the girls alone on their red blanket to sneak back to the roadster. Angela and Nina would snicker about what they were doing just out of sight. They felt their suspicions were reaffirmed when Carmen would reappear and swear the girls to secrecy. At the time, the girls did not know what they believed was hanky panky was actually a quick and ritualistic removal of guns and ammunition which were stored under those shiny new leather seats.

On a hot October day in 1927, Carmen picked up the girls to take them for their Sunday picnic in the foothills. There was nothing unusual about the occasion and Angela and Nina were in high spirits. The girls were in the backseat playing cat’s cradle as Carmen drove up the dusty road toward their familiar picnic area. But on this day, as Carmen rounded the familiar bend in the road, they came up to a road block. Dark men dressed in military attire with rifles strapped to their backs approached the car.

Carmen stopped the car as the men approached. Angela and Nina were playful and curious.

“¿Quien es ese hombre, prima?”

“¿Son esos policías?”

“¿Por qué nos detuvimos, Carmen?”

Carmen stiffened and whispered sternly, “Callate.”

She cleared her throat, adjusted her green dress to reveal a little more cleavage, and flashed a bright smile toward the men. A large older man with a full beard approached her and smiled gently in return.

“¿A dónde va, señorita?” he asked.

Carmen’s dark hair shimmered in the sunlight revealing a red tint both girls hoped they would inherit when they reached her age.

“El domingo vamos a jira en el volcán,” she replied smiling, white clean teeth against her red lips. “Vamos todos los fines de semana,” she continued. Angela thought she heard her cousins voice quiver a little.

From the backseat, Nina asked loudly, “¿Que está pasando?”

“Si,” said Angela, hoping to take the attention from her cousin. “Hay una revision en la carretera.”

“Primas!” Carmen said sharply, and the sisters sat down restlessly in the backseat.
The man smiled at the young girls and then returned his attention to Carmen.

“Si, es un mal día, podemos hacer picnic en otro lugar,” she said already shifting the car into reverse.

“No, no señorita,” the man said. He returned to his men and exchanged a few words. Three men then returned to the car and began to look inside it and around the carriage. The girls continued to ask them noisy, meaningless questions.

“¿Qué estás haciendo?”

“¿Eres policía?”

“¿Eres catolico?”

“¿Qué estás buscando?”

The men were kind in their responses. Carmen tried to quiet them, but the bearded man was demanding her attention. He was leaning in close to Carmen and talking to her softly.

Angela heard her nervously laugh a couple of times. She wondered what the man was saying to Carmen that was making her so uncomfortable. But when the man pulled away from the car she laughed and flashed her bright smile. He smiled back at her and then called his men from the car.

The men went to the blockade and lifted it out of the way.

“Que disfruten su picnic, señorita,” he said. “Pero la próxima semana, es posible que desee encontrar otro lugar. Las colinas se están poniendo peligrosas.”

Carmen smiled and waved, moving all four fingers in a flirtatious fashion, then she drove on. But she was tense and silent the rest of the way.

It was that moment that Carmen realized, in her willingness to fight for her cause, she was not willing to sacrifice these children. Her cousins did not choose, nor volunteer, nor ask for the risks she placed on them. These girls, whom she needed as nothing more than cover, could have been arrested or hurt or killed. They had no concept of La Cristiada or the rebellion or the political protests which she agreed to risk her life.

They were innocent. In her passion to act, she took their choice and they didn’t even know it.

When they stopped to picnic, she took the girls away from the car. She did not meet her lover that day although he came to the car as usual. She did not leave the girls for a moment, but sat beside them, watchful and protective.

“Estás bien, Carmen?” Nina asked. But Carmen only nodded.

They cut their picnic short that day. Soon after they ate, Carmen gathered the girls into the roadster and they sped back to their house.

When the girls got out of the car, Carmen caught them and hugged them. This was unusual and the girls exchanged a confused glance as their cousin clung to them. The material of green dress draped around them. Then she started to cry, smearing her red lipstick across white teeth.

“Que esta mal, prima,” Angela asked softly.

But Carmen did not respond. She just held them and sobbed, occasionally murmuring,

“Lo siento, lo siento, perdóname, perdóname.”

When the girl’s mother came out, she made eye contact with Carmen who then released the girls. “Vayan con su mama,” she said and the girls, confused and scared, ran into their house. Their mother stared at Carmen harshly and then followed the girls without a word. Carmen then climbed in her car and left.

Angela didn’t know it would be the last time Carmen would take the girls to picnic. She didn’t know that for the last few months, her and Nina had sat atop a pile of rifles with each trip to Volcan de Colima. She didn’t know that Carmen needed to be stopped and searched to realize just how much danger she was putting herself and her young cousins in.
It was fear and heartbreak that shook Carmen up and made her realize the risk she was placing on her young cousins. The guilt which must have accompanied the act. Carmen no longer took my grandmother or her sister as cover on her runs, but the runs continued until the day her lover’s head swung from a rope along the railroad.

 

“La Joven de La Cristiada” is previously published in Manzano Mountain Review (2016).

Her Absence

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

I do not regret the days
I spent loving you in her absence.

I do not regret
your tempered touches
as you searched for her skin
under my scales

or the way your eyes reflected
her sharp chin and freckled chest
when they fell on my frame.

I do not regret
the fleeting space we created,
morning gestures
in the folds of sheet and flesh.

Tending your wounds
with tongue and time.

You found solace
with your elbows on my table,
your dirty feet in my bed,
but I knew you would exit
on your own side to look
out the south facing window.

She was ever present
upon the waves of your thoughts.

Your ears keen for her voice,
but I heard it first,
soft as the buzz of bumble bees on the beach
calling you home.

I do not regret
returning to a solitary balcony
above the ocean’s turning point,
or slipping inside my bed,
still warm in your place.

As you kiss my hands
in gratitude of my hospitality,
my kindness,

don’t leave thinking,
I am emptied.

I gave what I wanted,
no more,
no less.

“Her Absence” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012 and Vox Poetica in 2011.

My Mother

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

my mother once told me

through the smoky air of our living room
after a long drag and a long drink

the women in our family have been
known to bring out the worst in men

drink
drag

but there was never one of them
that didn’t regret we were gone

she leaned back and looked at me
took a drag
sort of winked

I think it’s the brown eyes

“my mother” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012 and several other literary magazines from 20 years ago. It is my most published poem.

Solstice

/ mgmt

Katrina K Guarascio

You are not the only one
who crawls out at night

to slip to the far side yard
and sit beneath
the hanging wisteria
to eavesdrop on the stars.

I see you there.

Bare arms against
laced sleep shirt,
reflecting drops of silver
dribbled by night sky.

You roam
through the dim,
clicking cloven hooves,
thinking you are the only girl
the moon calls

until your eyes fall to mine.

“Solstice” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).

Hunger

/ mgmt
Katrina K Guarascio

 

In the days of hunger strikes
and promises made too easily,
I wanted the simplicity of touch
and your chest to support my fears.

It’s been years since I scraped feet
against white sheets and,
standing separate,

we attempted to rebuild empires
weathered to rubble.

But crawling belly to concrete
only left fresh scratches that spit
slivers of blood striping our shirts.

In the days of ice and cannibal,
you kept me from shivering
as the tips of my fingers
turned black with bite.

You kissed the armor of elbow,
knowing it would never be enough
but just the same,

it was the tenderness you knew,
and I was gracious.

There wasn’t enough strength in grasp
to pull from gravel.
Not enough resilience in blood
to let scratches scab.
You left me weak and broken.

I learned then
the itch under my skin
could not be scratched
by the eager fingers of men.

The most distinct lifelines transform when
left to swell and wrinkle in hot water.

I never wanted to be
unrecognizable to touch
even as time turned copper to rust.

In the days of sprinkled streets
and pocket watches,
I grew before you.

Less a weed
more an orchard of oranges,
ripening under your gaze.

You wanted me then
and the promise of war
kept body alive.

We slid easily,
eager for regression.
We broke twigs and tricks
as if our feet were only made to slip.
As if the inevitable
was petroglyphed on our bedroom walls.
We were made to feed.

It was never a question
how we became savage.

“Hunger” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014) by Swimming with Elephants Publications, The Legendary Issue 39,  and ConnotationPress.com 2013.