Atlas

By Laurie Ann Guerrero

(1) Supraorbital & Zygomatic bones: Brow and cheek.
Cradle for the eye: my mother. (2a) Elephants I carry in the order
of my lower teeth: grace as grandmother. (3) Mindfulness: bone
& tissue of the nape, pushing upward into the brain & down
the spine, to the elbows & shoulder blades.  (10) Lovemaking:
Atlas bone, holding up the globe of the head: venom
made in the marrow—where it often crawls onto the tongue.
(5) Bullies rest heavy on the shoulders, but, too my brother,
fighting for us—close to the ear: saying and not saying
everything. (4) Clavicle: I carry my father here: borderline
between what he claims and what he can’t: my brain,
my body. (9a) I wake from dreams wielding the blades
of my shoulders. (11) In my breasts, milk that soothes the hunger
to despise those who envy their ability. They are a revolution
unto themselves. (7) Betrayal lives just under the ribs:
what I have done. What you have done to me. (6) My spine
grew from fear, is a snake: Rattler. Guns live here, too.
(14) Whole belly: laughter & singing: the center. We do not
speak of money here. No currency needed. (12) Lovemaking:
crest of the ilium & whole belly laughter, whole belly
song. (8) Here is where I tremble: coccyx, the rattle. 
(13) Little hare: indifference.                 Or Buddha.
(2b) Grandmother as inherited muscle memory
in my hands: mend. (15) Knees: where I will not
let you take me. (9b) Loaded barrel of my calves. (16)
Lovemaking: Achilles, my children: the birthing of warriors.
(17) Sole: from where my kiss comes; root.

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Laurie Ann Guerrero was born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio and is the author of Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying (Notre Dame 2013) and A Crown for Gumecindo (Aztlan Libre 2015). Her latest collection, I Have Eaten the Rattlesnake: New & Selected is forthcoming in fall 2020 (TCU Press). She was appointed Poet Laureate of San Antonio in 2014, the Poet Laureate of State of Texas in 2016,and is the Writer-in-Residence at Texas A&M University-San Antonio.