Two Poems

WHERE I INHERIT MY SILENCE

i once walked into
my grandfather’s shadow

dug for spanish
with a stick of dynamite

felt it explode
on my mother tongue

i bruised
& he called them flowers

i spoke english
& he fed me more spanish

until my stomach knew
the taste of vinegar

how his gold ring whistled
me to sit & stay

& i became
a puddle of mud

i split myself in half
like any good exorcist

accent marks left me
like a startled bird

& i have yet
to speak honey

i carry pieces
of a tambourine

still searching
how to be a choir

LEAKED AUDIO FROM A DETENTION CENTER

On June 2018, leaked audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Detention Facility captures undocumented children crying. An anonymous source handed the recorded audio to Civil Right Attorney Jennifer Harbury and given to ProPublica for release.

hear how the children             eat their tears

how the rain    in their throats             demand to be a river

yet their palms be: drought     dirt grave         dead fish

quiet rock        anchor rust                  but know this:

grief can be     a kind of music           that knows how to rise

like the sea

—

Karla is a descendant of the Chichimeca people from Northern Mexico. She is a Pushcart nominee, a Macondo, The Loft Literary Center, VONA, and Pink Door fellow. Her poems have appeared and forthcoming in Bettering American Poetry, The Boiler Journal, ANMLY, Tinderbox, among other publications. Karla is the author of the chapbook, Grasshoppers Before Gods (Dancing Girl Press 2016) and the full length collection, How To Pull Apart The Earth (NOT A CULT. Publishing). Follow her on Instagram: @karlaflaka13.