Old writing and ramblings

So, earlier today I decided to tackle two major things that have been sort of sitting around the new place: (a) my suitcase that has been moonlighting as a dresser for nearly 7 months and (b) the boxes that were sitting in my storage unit since I graduated in 2009 and whose content had become a complete mystery to me. So hours into the project, after purging myself of a lot of unnecessary knick-knacks and consolidating all my boxed belongings as best as I could (for now anyway, my next goal is to buy a very sturdy bookshelf, I had no idea how large my personal library was until today...), I sat down and started flipping through old work that I had kept from college. As a writer - and one who's been fairy lazy at her craft for some time now - it's always fun, albeit painfully embarrassing as well, to revisit old work and see how you've adapted along the way. Some things will never change in my writing and I love seeing those little qualities in my work, and I also love catching the mistakes that at the time seemed like poetic genius and now cause a slight cringe ("Oh wow, Mariel...what were you thinking"). Anywho, here a couple of poems that for better or for worse came about and I felt compelled to share:


A Turkey's Egg


The stork with his Egyptian tongue,
the Spaniard with her red rag
fade among the smog of barnyard duties:
a rooster's cry
casts its political eye
among the old and new.


I pull my eel's head close
and watch the ducks
cut the green film
of the pond's surface
like the Parson's hand
through a sinner's heart. 


Yet today, a stranger falls behind
duties and politics are forgotten.
if only for a brief moment
to watch a gray misfit against yellow.


He does not belong,
a turkey's egg.


But there is some undeniable beauty,
a grace among his muscles 
weaved together under down feathers
like some filthy oriental rug
the others can not posses. 


No dogs will bite,
none will marry. 
They don't understand him.


And now, with neck bowed
aesthetically awaiting the serrated death
of another rejection beak,
he sees himself in the water
among the reeds and rushes,
blurred with the reflection
of the beautiful birds
he so desperately needs
to feel he's a part of.


A turkey's egg.
Born among the yellow smog of those ducks
and barnyard politics
will forever remain a swan.


A Mild Epiphany


Your childhood comes and goes
like rippling cloth or faded velvet,
filled with your mother's cheap
Puerto Rican coffee,
cobble stoned streets,
summer nights laced with sage,
and poorly planned photographs.


You convince yourself
that you haven't completely lost that.
Astronomy is simply
brief glints of heaven,
bedtimes stories serve
as passages to far-off worlds,
and your skin will always live
for the touch of cold, terracotta tiles
bathed in the summer's humid tongue.


Now as a woman,
your skin has lost its amber hum.
You only watch strangers
at laundromats while telling yourself
Next month will be the month!
For what? You don't know, but it seems to fit.
Being content has been surpassed 
by growing wants and needs.
Adulthood has come in the middle of the night
and rested its tattered strings over your face,
throwing illusions into your eyes.


You were once a swinger of birch trees,
an alchemist,
passionate
weightless.
A nomad who always returned
to the hands of God
and her mother's kiss 
every night. 


And now you wait.
You wait when this real life
will return -
wrapped carefully
in butcher paper, twine, and love.