Coatlicue’s Legacy

Coatlicue by Hector Arrache

(Para las dicipulas)

I am Coatlicue’s daughter
and reigning princess
but sometimes I forget.
Sometimes someone puts a hand up
that falls hard against my face
and I forget
that within me
is the word and
tomorrow he’d be dead.
No doctor would have helped.
His mortal mother, beside herself.

Sometimes I forget
all I need to do is say it
think it
breathe it
dream it
and life is at the hem of my stone skirt,
a drifting feather
four hundred warriors strong.
It waits for me to spread my legs
wide as a wild-eyed spider
PUSH
heaven to hell
PUSH
God’s soul through me
PUSH
the sun down to China
PUSH
Earth’s axis round
like a spinning top.

And life is in my hands,
suckling at my breast,
thrives on the rhythm of my beating heart,
warmth of my throbbing belly.
Bite that cord or not
spit out the skeletons of bad boys
or shit them out–
who did not learn to honor
Woman,
but fear Her just the same.

Sometimes I forget
when I’ve been robbed and raped
to numbness
that mine is a terrible wrath.
And that blood begins
and stops between my legs.

–1997, Chicago

Ana Castillo

*Coatlicue: Principal Aztec deity, the formidable goddess of fertility and destruction

This poem is from Castillo’s poetry collection I Ask the Impossible