Pablo Miguel Martínez: Adiós, o virgen de Guadalupe—

a wave, a wail, an endless loop
of hymn, of delirium. We laud her,
this brown-skinned girl, nimble,
 
balanced on a slip of moon,
headstrong as only mujercitas
her age can be, urge her back 
 
to her celestial jefe. Go back
where you’re safe, chula. 
What are you doing here, 
 
among the nopales and the men 
who’ll take ugly advantage? 
Your heavenly Pops will fret. 
 
Why can’t you be more like that 
immaculate girl who dresses
in creamy white and sky blue? he’ll cry.
 
No seas tan exigente, asking ese indio 
humilde to build you a shrine,
as if picking out a shiny trinket, 
 
demanding a sign of his devotion, 
as if conjuring roses in winter 
were nothing, just like that. Don’t be
 
quick to part your cloak for any güey,
dropping a field of stars on which to lie
for your heated entwining. You are always
 
with us, morenita, in spiky sun rays,
your outline in handprints when your raza
is pressed against walls, against our wills.
 
Adiós, mi reina. Go find what you seek 
en el otro lado. Here we will wait and hope
and pray, but for now, ¡Adiós, adiós!

                                                                                    

From Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Popculture Poetry Anthology (Madville, 2020). Poem included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.

Pablo Miguel Martínez's collection Brazos, Carry Me (Korima Press) received the 2013 PEN Southwest Book Award for Poetry.