Azahares 2020

2020

spanish language literary magazine

Mosaico Morisco NĂşmero 18 by John Chavers

Azahares 2020 Edition

Azahares is University of Arkansas-Fort Smith’s award-winning Spanish-language creative literary magazine. The primary purpose of this magazine is to provide students and community members with an arena for creative expression in the Spanish language, as well as a literary space for writing that presents the themes of the Latino experience. The azahar, or orange blossom, is a fower of special meaning. Representative of new life and purity, azahares form part of the iconic tradition of the Spanish-speaking world, embodying a freshness of spirit and perspective captured with this publication. Azahares highlights student work, as well as the creative endeavors of the greater Fort Smith community and beyond.

Executive Editor Dr. Mary A. Sobhani

Special thanks to the following: Dr. Terisa Riley, Chancellor; Dr. Georgia Hale, Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic Afairs; Dr. Paul Hankins, Dean of the College of Communication, Languages, Arts & Social Sciences; and Dr. Paulette Meikle, Associate Dean of the College of Communication, Languages, Arts & Social Sciences.

Lead Designers Jasmin Vorabouth

Associate Editors Dr. Ana María Romo Blas Lynda McClellan Copy Editors Madeline Martínez Yamilet Vargas Toledano Editorial Board Dr. Francesco Tarelli Gray Langston Supervising Designer Katie Harper

Cover Illustrator Megan Taylor Design Team Members Paul Easley Ashley Floyd Faith Greenfeld Josh Medley

This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Azahares 2020

3

ÍNDICE DE OBRAS Mosaico Morisco Número 18

Diminishing

John Chavers.............................................................................2

John C. Mannone.................................................................. 22

Últimas Scars

Basket Ceiling - Morelia, Michoacán, México

Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo ........................................6

Oda a la xoquía Sarah Degner Riveros............................................................ 7

Dolabela Engineer Guilherme Bergamini..............................................................8

Passing Anita Cantillo ...........................................................................10

Procesión de Oshún Matanzas, Cuba Diego Luis ................................................................................... 11

Family Recipe Julie Corrales ........................................................................... 12

Mexican-American vs. the Math of Education

María Guadalupe Guido................................................... 23

La puerta negra María Guadalupe Guido................................................... 24

La lancha atada Shyal Bhandari........................................................................26

The Early Years Rosanna Jiménez ..................................................................27

Saltar en el agua, Brasil Emanuela Franco.................................................................. 28

Silk Blindfolds Jocelyn Hernández.............................................................. 29

Irse con for John Davila..............................................................................30

Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo ...................................... 14

Noche o con la lluvia

Magia morena

John Davila..............................................................................30

Makaela Swinney ................................................................... 16

Si termino volando es sin darme cuenta

Cuando la Santa Muerte

John Davila............................................................................... 31

Sarah Degner Riveros.......................................................... 18

La enfermedad

Cine Viñales, Viñales, Cuba

Deborah K. Symons Roldán ............................................. 32

Jeremiah Gilbert ................................................................... 19

La noche puertorriqueña

Border-Free

Miguel Machado ................................................................... 34

Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo ..................................... 20

Incandescence

Una tarde en La Marina Matanzas, Cuba

Luke and Mandy Woodford............................................. 35

Diego Luis .................................................................................. 21

4

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Home Delivery (Servicio a domicilio)

Español

Jef Schif................................................................................... 38

Roxanna Wylie......................................................................... 51

Haven’t

to the girl sitting on the ground outside the ofce bathroom

Jef Schif................................................................................... 39

For there are…

Jef Schif...................................................................................40

Nuria is gone Elisa R.V. García...................................................................... 42

Julie Corrales .......................................................................... 52

Sólo tú y yo Galicia Gordon-Fernández ............................................. 54

Awakening

by Luke and Mandy Woodford ...................................... 55

Had an Honest Friend Been in the Delivery Room When I was Born

Orange Marigolds

Anita Cantillo .......................................................................... 43

Shyal Bhandari....................................................................... 56

Mosaico Morisco Número 12

Colorful Street, Nahuizalco, El Salvador

John Chavers..........................................................................44

Jeremiah Gilbert .................................................................... 61

Ojitos

Ode to My Bilingual Tongue

Mercedes Hernández ......................................................... 45

Esmeralda Gamez................................................................ 62

Desert Sands

Ceniza de mi boca

José Trejo-Maya ................................................................... 46

Manuel Carranza .................................................................. 64

A Box of Photographs

Lista de contribuidores

John C. Mannone...................................................................47

Engage in Culture................................................................. 65

Fuera de la sala de mando en el Observatorio de Arecibo

Mosaico Morisco Número John Chavers............................................................................71

John C. Mannone.................................................................. 48

Outside the Control Room at Arecibo Observatory John C. Mannone.................................................................. 49

El taller del artista O Farril Matanzas, Cuba Diego Luis .................................................................................50

Azahares 2020

5

Últimas Scars Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo Las últimas scars to fade Are in the mind and DNA Mindless traditions/ Repetitions are not my way Cortaron my manos Yet they are recreating Cosas that you’ve never seen Pero vas a ver: keep waiting Cortaron my lenguas But I grew back a few más I’m planting a garden Scatter seeds as I pass For each libro burned Escribo diez más HOY Write them with an ink They cannot destroy Wisdom, conocimiento On a stone engraving That wasn’t the end No-- that was the beginning

6

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Ancestors in my sangre Whispering through my corazón Painting con manos antiguas Writing palabras con razón My ancestors viviendo en mí Son los que estás viendo Paintings, poem-songs, ‘n danzas In my sangre are corriendo Demolish a city, a person But nunca a nation Dormidos but waking After each assassination Despierten, my arms With a message for our gente Despierten, my feet Images clear the mente Wake up, my minds and lenguas Learn it, speak it, read it Despierten, my hearts

Oda a la xoquía Sarah Degner Riveros Eres un lecho elevado; guardas mares y tumbas, semillas en el sudor bestial de sábanas empapadas.

Descansas como trapo de cocina, sapo de otro pozo que añoras el fuego del sol, el aire de la libertad.

Revolcarás en las brisas de primavera a for de piel.

Azahares 2020

7

Dolabela Engineer Guilherme Bergamini Industrial Malvina in Engenheiro Dolabela, Bocaiúva district, located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, was declared bankrupt in 2001.

Thousands of people worked in sugarcane cutting and sugar and alcohol production. Today about 500 former workers have not yet received their compensation.

With the declaration of bankruptcy, the company’s assets, whether land, machinery, equipment or any other property, became a “bankrupt estate.” The company’s obligations, that is, its debts to the tax authorities, suppliers and workers should have been settled using this bankrupt estate.

Dolabela_Engineer-Bocaiúva-State-of-Minas_Gerais-Brazil 01 by Guilherme Bergamini

8

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Dolabela Engineer-BocaiĂşva-State-of-Minas_Gerais-Brazil 02 by Guilherme Bergamini

Dolabela Engineer-BocaiĂşva-State-of-Minas Gerais-Brazil 03 by Guilherme Bergamini

Azahares 2020

9

Passing Anita Cantillo They roll their eyes when I ask en espaĂąol, please. Silently, I apologize to mi propia mamĂĄ for the times I stubbornly answered in English her own requests.

Their freckles and fre hot copper hair and alabaster whiteness belie their mestizaje.

Can you be Latino without knowing the mother tongue?

When forced, the words tumble around in their mouths, spill out like freshly dried clothes, a mess of tangled letters that cannot be folded neatly.

But they love the food.

Does that count?

They ask for avocado, sneak piĂąas into the grocery cart.

And the music. They love that, too.

Are these descents of latinidad enough to pass the one drop rule?

10

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Procesión de Oshún, Matanzas, Cuba por Diego Luis

Family Recipe Julie Corrales chiles plucked from branches like eggs from ovaries you’re lucky si el chile te sale bravo if it protests it’s death on your tongue dressed in spongy egg whites, bathed in salsita fresca warm oozing cheese flling my cheeks femininity in my mouth my mother would buy chiles rellenos from this place called super cocina on university ave & 36th she said the guisados reminded her of her native D.F. my tía made them from scratch the way she learned in Tijuana perfected in San Diego the places my mother brought her my mother taught me to GET UP even if your back buckles with grief begging you back to bed even when diabetes nibbles at your toes betrayal pufs your eyes and turns your words to whispers GET UP. Go to work.

Rescue your children. Save your sisters. my tía taught me to make chiles rellenos

12

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

tienes buena mano mija she said, because i beat the eggs to stif stif peaks ¡ya te puedes casar! because the queso oaxaca dripped to her wide chin and she slurped it back into her kind mouth i know three ways to make the sauce i mix cumin in the four my father had an afair with my aunt while my mother lay on her deathbed they took turns watching over her and other things maybe they were both lonely maybe they were both grieving they were both selfsh my father praaaisssed my tía for her humility for her servitude ¡qué mujer! my mother worked looonnnggg hours brought home the bacon and took shortcuts in the kitchen she refused to clip my father’s toenails i saw my aunt doing it once towards the end while mami slept in the other room fnally resting

sometimes i take shortcuts other times i slow to mix cumin into four switch out oaxacan cheese for queso fresco when the cheese drips to my chin i don’t know whether to slurp it up or spit it out i delight in the seeds near the spicy stem and sop up guilty with spongy fried egg whites shame and pleasure the secret ingredients in all my relationships if my mother had made chiles rellenos, what would she have flled them with? why do i desire soooo badly to perfect a recipe?

Azahares 2020

13

Mexican-American vs. the Math of Education Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo Dedicated to Chicanas, Mexicanas, Latinas, and especially Mexican-Americans growing up in Arizona and Texas in the 2010s, those who participated in the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, and SomosMAS. I read that the Boards of Education Banned some of my favorite books, Implied Mexican-American Studies Pose a threat, that hyphens can be “divisive,” They insisted on “unity” and renamed Mexican-American Studies “Ethnic Studies.”

“Divisive” reminds me of math All-American arithmetic...

So what is the square root of their intention?

Is their angle obtuse?

Let’s do the math: The border divides families, Multiplies tears, Unrevised history adds confusion, Subtracts identity.

We need to learn our ancestral history.

“Unity” reminded me of indigenous peoples Subtracted from family and community, Added to unifying Americanization schools.

Long hair forcibly reduced, Names recalculated, Culture replotted into another quadrant– But they want the results to be positive?

What’s wrong with this equation?!

We can always fnd a common denominator Like movies, music, TV, and sports Formulas like after-work drinks, And we can all agree that Mexican food Is greater than or equal to...

14

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

But we can’t force a false unity We must put justice at a right angle

Who sits to the right on the number line.

We don’t appreciate the inequalities!

We can forgive, but we can’t forget Because it’s not all in the past Just like in the Jim Crow south Slavery wasn’t really subtracted And the people were legally divided And there’s STILL a remainder No juries, only judgement and jail.

They made an “us” and a “they” They want to subtract our history, Destroy Mexican-American Studies, Subtract our literature, ban our books, Subtract our identity, No “Mexican-Americans” They re-named us all “ethnic” now...

And we should know that many Mexican-Americans Are indigenous or Have a high ratio of indigenous ancestry In addition to European ancestry And at least a fraction Of African, Asian, and/or Middle Eastern ancestry...

We can forgive, but we can’t forget As we argue over papers and numbers, I still see the sine that says we can’t come in, A cosine to buy our ancestors’ stolen land While we’re trapped in matrices: Laws, lies, and legal injustice, A concentration camp—cages!

We can forgive, but we can’t forget.

Only treaties are forgotten Land shared in reduced improper fractions, Families and communities minus children, Clean water perpendicular to pipelines, Holidays celebrate slavery, rape, genocide.

So we ethnical people shake our heads along the x-axis, Call ourselves what we choose as we reveal history, Then multiply banned books to the power of ffty-two Because we did the math: It’s not Mexican-American Studies that divide us.

We can forgive, but we can’t forget Public education, Plus pipelines plus prisons Don’t let us forget.

Forgetting only benefts the abuser

Azahares 2020

15

Magia morena Makaela Swinney Piel Morena, Piel Morena, ¡Sí, esa soy yo!

Estoy orgullosa en esta piel llena de melanina que Dios me dio.

Desde la parte superior de mi cabeza hasta la parte inferior de mis pies.

Mi piel morena es una declaración, mi afrmación, mi representación, mi cultura, mi vida.

Piel Morena, Piel Morena, ¡Sí, esa soy yo! ¡Mi piel morena es una minoría!

Latinos, afroamericanos, asiáticos y nativos.

César Chávez, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi, y Pocahontas para nombrar unos pocos.

Los pocos de muchas pieles morenas que nos abrieron el camino a todos.

Piel Morena, Piel Morena, ¡Sí, esa soy yo! ¡No tengas miedo (no temas) de ser de piel morena!

Trabajo duro, dedicación, discriminación, injusticia, sangre, sudor, lágrimas, 16

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

largos días y noches largas.

No una piel morena de nueve a cinco, pero toda mi vida tuve que luchar. ¡Piel morena dura!

Esta piel morena no fue hecha para romperse.

Orgullosa de ser de piel morena, bendecida por ser elegida.

Piel Morena, Piel Morena, ¡Sí, esa soy yo!

Si estás escuchando a esta piel morena, no dejes que mi piel morena te engañe.

Olvida las mentiras y los estereotipos sobre mi piel morena Deja que esta piel morena te muestre lo que puede hacer ¡Y lo hará!

Piel Morena, Piel Morena, ¡Sí, esa soy yo!

A todos de piel morena: ¡Levanten la cabeza! ¡Siempre manténganla en alto!

Los sueños se hacen realidad para nosotros las de piel morena.

A cada niño, niña, hombre y mujer, joven o viejo que es de piel morena Recuerda……

Tu melanina es tu magía. Úsala sabiamente, úsala con orgullo.

Fuiste elegido para ser de piel morena.

Piel Morena, Piel Morena, ¡Sí, esa soy yo!

Azahares 2020

17

Cuando la Santa Muerte Sarah Degner Riveros venga por mí, estaré lista, abrigada en un traje de neopreno, con crampones de invierno puestos sobre botas altas, por si acaso.

La oscuridad del Río Estigia no puede atenuar la linterna que ilumina las orillas internas de mi ser, porque mi tatarabuela que salió de Prusia en barco llegó a estas llanuras, se cavó un hoyo en Nebraska, una casa escarbada de terrones bajo una loma.

Mi abuelita me espera en la ribera del oeste, para mostrarme el camino al norte de los ancestros.

18

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Cine ViĂąales, ViĂąales, Cuba por Jeremiah Gilbert

Azahares 2020

19

Border-Free Elizabeth JimĂŠnez Montelongo I see you See me In California, in 2020 I see my face in yours Can you see your face in mine?

Fifty years ago, I could not attend college In my brown skin, But today, I have diplomas and degrees.

A hundred and ffty years ago, I couldn’t vote, With a womb in my body, But today, I vote with my ballots and dollars.

Two hundred years ago, I was a slave Body tortured Children stolen, But today, I take back my body and my children.

20

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Five hundred and thirty years ago, I existed in two places: Half my blood was roaming this continent, Half my blood was across the ocean, But today, I stand whole, uniting two worlds.

Six hundred years ago, I was painting mysteries On stones and in books In red and black ink.

Today, I paint the clues.

Thirteen thousand years ago, I was roaming the continent North to south, jungle to snow, Sea to sea, border-free.

Again today, my mind is free.

I see you and I see me: Border-free.

Una tarde en La Marina, Matanzas, Cuba por Diego Luis

Azahares 2020

21

Diminishing John C. Mannone Diminishing Be careful, my son, when you wish upon the stars, be ready to fall on your face and pray they don’t fall on you Be careful, son, the desert may hide you but in a day, the sun can wither your heart; and the cold night numb your conscience.

Be careful, the mighty river can take you to new lands, but also sweep you away, drown your dreams. El Gringo might grab you, send you back downcast to my empty arms and Wolves will howl at the moon’s emptiness but Coyotes will simply smile as they kill you and empty your pockets.

22

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Basket Ceiling - Morelia, Michoacán, México by María Guadalupe Guido

La puerta negra María Guadalupe Guido Después de mucho tiempo aún recuerdo la casa de mi abuelita Teresa. La casa de mamá Tere (como le llamábamos) era un lugar misterioso que despertaba la curiosidad de todo el pueblo. Su casa era grande con una reja y una puerta negra enorme. Ella construyó su propio jardín donde sembraba frutas, verduras y chiles.

Aunque la puerta negra de la casa de mi mamá Tere intimidaba mucho a la gente, ella era muy conocida. Mamá Tere despertaba antes de que cantara el gallo para ir por el pan y después al molino. Ella era muy alta y su postura era muy frme. Su imagen era muy importante para ella y por ello tejía su cabello castaño en dos trenzas y usaba sus vestidos largos con medias, zapatos cerrados, suéter y no podía faltar su rebozo alrededor de su torso.

Salía a la calle y todos la saludaban.

Vendedor ambulante: Buenos días, doña Tere, ¿Va a querer frijoles hoy?

Abuelita: Buenos días, muchacho, ¿A cuánto los vendes?

Vendedor ambulante: para usted, el mismo precio.

Abuelita: Pasa por la casa entre ocho y media o nueve y me dejas 2 kilos.

Aquí tienes veinte pesos.

Aún no llegábamos por el pan cuando: Vendedor ambulante: Buenos días, doña Tere ¿Me compra leche?

Abuelita: Buenos días, muchacho, toma tus centavos y a las nueve me dejas la leche, ya sabes que hacer.

Vendedor ambulante: Sí, doña Tere.

Llegando al pan, escogía entre el pan recién hecho y caminamos hacia el molino.

Obrera de molino: Buenos días, doña Tere.

Abuelita: Buenos días, muchacha, manda al chiquillo por ahí antes de las ocho.

Obrera de molino: Sí, doña Tere.

24

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

De regreso a la casa de mi abuelita Teresa ella pasaba por el mandado que ocupaba para las comidas del día. Mi abuelita Tere era muy respetada y reconocida por su familia pues ella venía de una familia grande. En su familia había nueve mujeres, incluyéndola, era fascinante en aquel tiempo tener una familia enorme llena de hijas. Después de casarse con mi abuelito Fernando fue reconocida aún más entre el pueblo pues su esposo tenía la piel morena y ella era de piel clara. En el pueblo murmuraban sobre mi abuelito que era un hombre fuerte, culto y serio pues él trabajaba en el campo que se consideraba un trabajo importante. Aun así, la gente estaba fascinada por su casa y curiosa por saber qué había detrás de esa puerta negra.

Como las horas en el reloj, llegaban los vendedores con los encargos de mi abuelita. Ellos tocaban la puerta y ella salía, les daba su propina a los vendedores y se iban.

Los vendedores aprovechaban los segundos, mientras mi abuelita contaba la propina, para asomarse a ver el corredor.

Después ellos se iban al poste de la calle y contaban su propina: Vendedor ambulante: hoy pude ver el piso del corredor, es azul rey.

Vendedor ambulante: yo lo miré verde.

Mensajero del molino: no, es gris.

Fueron pasando los años y la gente del pueblo miró cómo mi abuelita envejecía .Sin embargo, ella mantenía su postura y manera de ser. La gente se acostumbró a ella pues su rutina diaria formó parte de los demás. Después de un tiempo mi abuelita tuvo que retirarse de su pueblo para comenzar una vida nueva. Su decisión impactó al pueblo pues muchos de los vendedores y mensajeros estaban acostumbrados a ella. Ella nunca quiso despedirse de ellos pues pensaba que regresaría. El último día antes de irse los dos vendedores y el mensajero pasaron a despedirse de ella.

Mi abuelita con lágrimas en sus ojos, abrazó a los tres y les explicó que no era una despedida, sino un hasta pronto. Al fnal de marcharse notaron que miraron hacia dentro de la puerta, nunca se acabó el ministerio de lo que había detrás de la puerta negra.

Azahares 2020

25

La lancha atada Shyal Bhandari Colgado en la penumbra de una nube el crepúsculo oscila con el vaivén de la noche.

El mar está inmóvil, es una fotografía salada y la arena, yeso seco.

Entre el bostezo de los pescadores, una mujer camina sobre los granos grises y rosas, congelados, en la orilla del mar.

Con su andar va despertando al océano sus pies acaramelados derriten la arena calada, atrapada, entre sus dedos.

Ella se marcha y llegan olas para borrar sus huellas.

Capas de agua van deformando el rastro de su presencia.

La noche se deshace, las nubes huyen del sol, los pescadores llegan, desatan sus lanchas, adentran al mar.

26

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

The Early Years Rosanna JimĂŠnez Up at 4am to scrape Ice of the car to Punch in on time Do what is ugly What is necessary What is unthanked There is laundry and There is food to cook And there are holes Needing repair and hair Needing detangling Requiring a hand on The head of a child Stif brush and soft touch Injuries disregarded Hands cracking, feet Aching, backs breaking Mouths yawning, eyes Twitching for a break Legs kneeling and Fingers pressed for God Tongue pleading for a Break. Body in a coat And gloves under sheets Up at 4am to scrape

Azahares 2020

27

Saltar en el agua, Brasil por Emanuela Franco

28

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Silk Blindfolds Jocelyn Hernández I watch my parents blind themselves.

Taking turns wrapping silk over their brown tired eyes I see them resting their chins to their chest The cracks in their cinnamon skin cripple my emotions and I, their executioner, have done this to them When they were young, they dreamed about my siblings and me They were told it would be better Gathered their memories And abandoned every truth they knew To come to a land that had a prison waiting for them I’ve learned to hold my own hand As I watch their smiles while the world pushes them to the dirt Because when I tell their story I speak of pain and sacrifce But with blindfolds in hand, they tell the same story about love for me They made friends with the dirt a long time ago But realizations of injustice haunt me to sweat I focused on the white man’s knees bent in front of me While he told a shivering six-year-old To tell her mother to learn English I catch myself looking at the ground now When insecurity blankets over me And I think of them And all the people holding silk blindfolds And how the world is But how it shouldn’t be

Azahares 2020

29

Irse con for John Davila Sol poniente—pena de cobre—¡cómo nos amábamos A la luz moribunda! Últimos rayos arrojados por los Cirros—me despediste con for—y me fui con for Hacia el este—abierto y llenándose de noche— Con ganas de luz y una línea color rosa que se evapora A mis espaldas.

Noche o con la lluvia John Davila No se ve la llovizna tamizada por los árboles En la oscuridad, sólo sus efectos: hojas que refejan La luz de los ojos de bellas mujeres, el concreto, Oscurecido y bebiendo, y un surtido de animales Que brotan de la tierra como si por primera vez.

Hasta lo invisible canta—comme une prière— Y teje sus ecos por el aire nuevo y resplandeciente Que nos encierra en un momento irreproducible— Le monde vient à la table pour trouver un siège— La lluvia intensifca.

30

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Si termino volando es sin darme cuenta John Davila La mañana anima su orquesta. Bailan los pájaros Sobre el alpiste que les dejó una anciana que habita Las ventanas de su domicilio. Parece estar consciente El césped de su crecimiento al igual que las fores Que encienden sus tallos y arden para el que quiera ver, Mientras ve, Dando vida a la maquinaria, La estructura de experiencia—destapada— El calor que entra por los pies, y el peso del cielo azul— Si termino volando es sin darme cuenta.

Azahares 2020

31

La enfermedad Deborah K. Symons Roldán España, 1950.

Armando era un señor muy normal. Tenía una casa normal, un trabajo normal, e intentaba ser feliz, ya que su normalidad le daba todo aquello que necesitaba.

Sin embargo, no era nada feliz.

Y es que Armando tenía desde hacía muchos años una especie de enfermedad. Era una cosa que nadie sabía qué era, ni qué nombre tenía. De vez en cuando lo atacaba, y el pobre se ponía muy mal. A veces le cogía en la ofcina, a veces en la playa de vacaciones. Eran unos ataques horribles, y el pobre no sabía cómo contenerlos. Le venían así, de repente. Por ejemplo, estaba en la playa y mientras to-do el mundo alrededor hablaba de las cosas más mundanas y normales, del día a día, qué sé yo, de los niños, del trabajo, del piso, de las facturas, de la tele, Armando, co-mo si un oscuro anhelo insensato se le metiera en la sangre, empezaba a pensar en las musarañas, a hacer garabatos en la arena con el pie, o cogía con la mano conchas abandonadas por la marea y montaba casitas con formas variadas, haciendo dibujos en la arena…

El primer día que pensó que lo que tenía era alguna extraña enfermedad, fue cuando sus amigos y su querida esposa se lo quedaron mirando atónitos en la playa con cara de ¿Pero qué caramba le pasa a Armando? ¿Qué está haciendo con el pie?

Otro día, a la siguiente semana, le cogió otro ataque en la ofcina. Armando te-nía un trabajo muy bueno. Su despacho estaba en un edifcio muy pulcro, ordenado, con paredes de color beige y muebles de plexiglás. Una tarde, que lo tenía casi todo acabado por ese día, le vino uno de sus ataques: como sonámbulo que camina despierto, su mano abrió el cajón y sin pensarlo cogió un bolígrafo y un papel con una ademán casi dantesco y empezó a garabatear insensatamente lo que parecían palabras totalmente incongruentes, una detrás de otra, formando algo como una especie de historia, un cuento, que sé yo…

Temblando, casi sin poder respirar de la angustia, lo terminó y lo escondió en el cajón, sofocado, sudando, como quien esconde el arma homicida de un crimen, y lo cerró con llave rápidamente con la sen-sación horrible de haber cometido un sacrilegio, o un terrible pecado.

Estos ataques tan extraños de los que nunca había oído hablar le venían cada vez más a menudo, hasta que al cabo de un tiempo su cajón estaba totalmente reple-to de papelotes con dibujos, garabatos y un sinfín de historias.

Aún así, gracias a Dios, cuando Armando volvía a casa y se encontraba con su esposa que le había preparado un buen cocido, esperándole, con el delantal

32

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

puesto, y veía a sus hijos sentaditos a la mesa para empezar a cenar que le preguntaban: “Hola papi, ¿cómo ha ido hoy el trabajo?” Armando respiraba hondo, se tranquilizaba, volvía a la normalidad y se olvidaba por completo de su “enfermedad”… por un rato.

Sin embargo, al cabo de unos días, le volvía a atacar de nuevo. Se ahogaba, sudaba, escribía, dibujaba, no podía parar la mano, ¡parecía que tenía vida propia! La imaginación lo sucumbía, lo desmantelaba con su fuerza vil, le destrozaba la tranquili-dad, la cordura, se lo carcomía por dentro como una serpiente que se metía en sus adentros y no lo dejaba pensar. Su mano, totalmente descontrolada, creaba historias y dibujos, llenaba papeles en blanco con ideas de todo tipo que salían de la nada, del vientre, de su alma quizás, hasta que Armando casi no podía ni respirar y con lágri-mas en los ojos lo metía todo otra vez en el cajón y desesperado, lo volvía a cerrar con llave… Nadie podía enterarse de su enfermedad. Nadie… ¿Dios sabe qué pensa-rían de él?

Pasaron varios años así y un día… un día Armando desapareció.

Durante semanas todo el mundo lloró. Se angustiaron, se preguntaron ¿dónde estará nuestro Armando? ¿qué le debe haber pasado? El vecindario se vistió de negro. Pensaron que había muerto, quizás caído en algún despeñadero, o lo habían raptado, pero ¿quién? ¿y por qué?. ¿Quién querría raptar o hacerle daño al pobre Armando? Todo el mundo lo amaba, era sólo un buen hombre que trabajaba duro y cuidaba de su familia… ¿Dónde estaba Armando?

Desafortunadamente, al cabo de unos días, cuando todas estas preguntas no habían recibido ninguna respuesta, la mujer de Armando bajó al sótano de su casa una tarde, triste y soñolienta, para encontrarse con la respuesta de lo que había su-cedido. O peor aún, quizás para encontrarse con más preguntas sin contestar. Ya que ese día encontró a su marido en el sótano y la historia de Armando, es un enigma del cual todavía hoy en día se habla en ese pueblo.

En el sótano de su casa, la esposa de Armando encontró a su marido muerto.

No raptado, ni caído en un despeñadero, sino sucumbido y enterrado en una masa enorme de cajas a su alrededor.

Cientos y cientos de cajas llenas, repletas de sudor y lágrimas, abarrotadas de dibujos, novelas, cuentos, historias, ideas… Cajas llenas de su alma, de su corazón, rebosantes y totalmente llenas de su indomable imaginación…

FIN

Azahares 2020

33

La noche puertorriqueña Miguel Machado Cae la noche con una negrura tan inmensa que ni las estrellas escapan y sus parpadeos brillantes dejan de pulsar y poco a poco sus caras desvanecen debajo de una marea tinta negra Cae la noche con una mudez tan completa que de repente el mundo se vacía entregando sonido cotidiano como tributo al oscurecer y poco a poco rellena los Guabairos la esfera de noche con nocturnos Cae la noche con una negrura tan inmensa que extinguen las farolas y los techos de zinc que salpican la montaña se hunden en sombra y la telaraña de plena noche poco a poco enreda el mundo de lo claro y poco a poco empiezan a cantar los fantasmas una melodía un clavo que traspasa las épocas y uno se recuerda que el mundo de lo claro es recién nacido y que en el principio todo era oscuridad y que todo empieza con una negrura que se pone clave al caos de la tierra y que a la negrura todo regresará...

34

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Incandescence by Luke and Mandy Woodford

Azahares 2020

35

Bogotรก por Alexandria Dormois

Home Delivery (Servicio a domicilio) Jef Schif Your door opens to headborne tamales raisin sweet and pork savory to margarine lacquered loaves not worth the pain of proofng nor eating to leaftied iris and bagged begonia to an uncle older than ash hauling stingless Panchoy honey macadamia and foripondia sold he claims contra bronchitis and asthma and as permeable bandage to religious coquettes selling their living lord in laminated cards and etched votives to Jimbee and Piel de Sapo melons and nuclear green shard and scaled jackfsh harvested near RĂ­o Los Esclavos and Barra El ChapetĂłn snubbed pickups shuttering their arrival then dripping their spent ice into neighborhood dusk

38

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Haven’t Jef Schif ridden the chicken bus San Bartolomé to charmed misery yet today nor traipsed behind my better indexing mother-swelled mongrels and their squatter kings milling behind the bathroom block at La Terminal Haven’t queried a local about that particular yawing silvery spike-barked tree in the distance nor about nisperos lichas anonas the fruity province of akimboed and gnarly-kneed market matrons nor avoided Plaza Mayor declaiming the diference between tourists and travelers Blessed be those who get under the hood!

Would of course but haven’t either doled out guilt cash to any who have my number spot me coming know a gringo mark when he appears

Azahares 2020

39

For there are…

Jef Schif Regions in this land where those spared imported pestilence still study the Popol Vuh to know the exploits and triumphs in the underworld of the hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque Districts where those spared foreign voracity stoop to harvest malanga under droopy mountain nimbus K’iche’ yet on their tongues feet squat and lacquered as paddles Pueblitos in this land where girls are taught to gnaw clay shards to improve their luck if their head pot shatters

40

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

during a courting ritual they did not initiate nor care to prolong Manzanas in this land where irreverent is lingering at dusk in a grove of mamey sapote that sweet-potatoey pumpkiny honeyed-peachy cantaloupey almondy fruit so nourishing its pulp and milky sap buoyed marauding Cortes when game was absent or sent hurtling through irregular tamarindo and granadilla stands Subsistence plots in this land where glory is the surge of guanรกbana and cherimoya demand the ritual call for ocote and palma de copal

Azahares 2020

41

Nuria is gone Elisa R.V. García A person gone missing in Mexico. The daily terror of this country, crimes without perpetrators, murders without bodies. Lives suspended in ignorance: Where is she? Who took her? Why? No response, no answers.

Her name was Nuria*. She was born a year after me, in the same city. Could she have been my classmate? In Guadalajara, I had a classmate with that name in ffth grade. Her face was round and her smile was like sunshine. I look again at the missing person advertisement. Could it be her?

My eyes squint as I give a closer look at the woman’s features. I feel shaken.

As a cold shudder runs up and down my back, I realize that it does not make a diference if I knew her or not. Would it make me more indiferent if I had never met her? Why should it? The tragedy remains the same. This woman’s dreams, her achievements, her mistakes – everything lies in the past. Her life was taken.

There is no present tense for her, there is no future. No joys, no sorrows.

Why her?

Does it matter much why they took her? There is no answer that could change the severity of this calamity. If it was because she worked for the Justice Department, or because she was a woman, or because she accidentally became a witness of a crime… What reason could make this less or more tragic?

Why? This question can only bring clarifcation; it can only add a few more words to the closing chapter of one life. True, it could help prevent crimes like this one. But only if the state can fnally answer: who? when? how? And act upon this.

Nothing will bring back people like Nuria. Unique lives, with all the richness of human personalities, are lost by the thousands, year by year.

The state shrugs, we mourn. *Names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

42

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Had an Honest Friend Been in the Delivery Room When I was Born Anita Cantillo (with apologies to my parents) Cómo vas a hablarle a un brown baby out the womb born just north of the equator and name her Shawn?

Cómo puedes – to swaddle her in ambiguity like that!

Half her family ni lo puede decir. It’s not a sound the tico tongue can make, and para siempre she’ll have to explain to white folk what she’s doing with one of their names.

No tiene sentido.

Her name needs music, not some hollow sound.

It’s neither enough letters or syllables. ¿Por qué no María Paz or Jimena or Valentina?

Or names that travel between borders: Carolina, Rebecca, Sofa?

What were you thinking?

Did you let the gringo decide?

No, mija. You got this one wrong.

Azahares 2020

43

Mosaico Morisco NĂşmero12 por John Chavers

Ojitos Mercedes Hernández Muchos recuerdos juntos, entre todos Los buenos viajes como a Colorado En el lago con el hombre cantando Medio romántico, medio chistoso Una exploración de un gran mundo nuevo El primero de julio nos casamos En el centro debajo de un verde árbol Para comenzar un viaje muy bueno Ya sabes que tú eres mi alma gemela Estoy agradecida por tu amor Y también por todo tu arduo trabajo Una historia que es como una novela Una familia llena de cachorros Y un buen mundo lleno de maravillas Contigo la vida es tan divertida Y yo para siempre seré tus ojos

Azahares 2020

45

Desert Sands JosĂŠ Trejo-Maya Can you read this?

Got to go back to the conch shell and the pyramid in the pausivity of words.

Copal smoke shrapnel how ideas strike/streak: a remnant of the Nahuatlacah oral tradition tonalpouque mexica.

La noche triste (i.e. August 13, 1519).

The poetry speaks for itself as it bleeds you in:

Nahuatl, Paipai, Chiligua, Kukapa, Cochimi, Kumiahi, Yuma, Seri, Chontal, Chinanteco, Pame, Chichimeca, Otomi, Mazahua, Matlacuinzeca, Ocuilteco, Zapoteco, Zolteco, Chatino, Papauko, Mixteco, Cuicateco, Triqui, Amudgo, Mazateco, Chocho, Ixcateco, Huave, Tlapaneco, Totonaca, Tepehua, Popoluka, Mije, Zoque, Huasteco, Lacandon, Maya, Chol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tocolabal, Mam, Teco, Ixil, Aguacateco, Motozintleco, Chicomulzelteco, Kalcobal, Jacalteco, Quiche, Kakchiquel, Kekchi, Pima, Tepehuan, Tarahumara, Mayo, Yaqui, Kaita, Opata, Cora, Huichol, Purepecha, I am crying right now you know!

Chicuey Ocelotl Tlacaxipehualiztli Macuil Calli

46

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

A Box of Photographs John C. Mannone A shoebox, eggshell white, of-colored with dust and laced with attic cobwebs, is full of dissheveled photographs, a collage of memories.

It’s hard to picture myself a toddler.

It appears I jumped right into manhood were it not for these photographs from Uruguay. The past may seem dull in fat matte, tinged yellow from aging.

But truth isn’t always black & white.

In one curled photo, my abuelita is holding my mother, a little girl.

Even harder to imagine. I paint-dream yellow and blue into her uncolored dress in another picture, the hues she always loved. Mother’s gray eyes snapped-shut by the camera belie the rich brown glints of her irises focused on me. Deeply into the box of pictures, I hear ocean.

There, in sepia, just beyond the park with all the eucalyptus trees. I smell the fragrance of her dress.

Azahares 2020

47

Fuera de la sala de mando en el Observatorio de Arecibo John C. Mannone Los colores lustran su lienzo, como el aceite al plumaje del cuervo; rojo, con destellos azul-violeta, separados nítidamente como el aceite y el agua.

Con acerada fuerza, la seda se estira, se ancla entre el carso y el árbol de naranjas— casi imperceptible, rodeada de verdor tropical — yace en el cercado, tal seductor de estrellas... como lámina de burbuja sutil, traicionada por el resplandor, deformada por el viento, y diseño formidable.

Y en su laberíntico mundo, tejió como soberano, todos sus ojos buscando; y yo, encandilado, como indaga su universo... mi universo

Spanish translation by Wanda Díaz

48

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Outside the Control Room at Arecibo Observatory John C. Mannone Colors gloss its web as oils coat a raven’s quill red with blue and violet sheen separate clean as oil from water.

Silk stretches with strength of steel anchors between the karst and tangerine tree— almost unnoticed amidst the tropic green, this star catcher in the middle of the courtyard, like a fragile bubble flm betrayed by shimmer, deformed by wind, but with reticulate design, and in its intricate world, its lord tethered, all eyes searching, I wonder how it is probing its universe‌ my universe.

Azahares 2020

49

El taller del artista O Farril Matanzas, Cuba. por Diego Luis

50

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Español Roxanna Wylie La lengua torcida Rodando palabras extrañas, difíciles Verbos conjugados. ¿Qué más? No son fáciles.

Las manos que tiemblan El corazón agita.

Cuando empiezo a hablar los pensamientos con las letras se mezclan.

¡ ME RINDO VENCIDA! Pero algo en mí cambia.

Soy ni analfabeta ni temo la lengua y ya la comprendo.

Aún si poco a poco.

Es como un secreto que sólo yo hablo.

Y me susurra. ¿Qué estará diciendo?

Azahares 2020

51

to the girl sitting on the ground outside the ofce bathroom her mother was cleaning on the night i was working late…

Julie Corrales i see you, morita. i remember. i too was subjected to boring nights outside a bathroom outside an ofce in a hollow building my bone-set loneliness echoing of of tile foors and white walls while my mother knelt over a toilet just on the other side of the door i was also met in the hallway by lone late workers a man in a plain button-up sleeves rolled up as if he would ever have his arms up to his elbows in anything the tall thin white woman with features i saw in every 80s music video but never in my neighborhood — her beauty a jarring reminder i do not belong the men would almost always stop in the their tracks their jaws would fall slightly they wouldn’t say anything but if they had i’m certain they would have stuttered their eyes would go from wide and round who is this foreign girl jutting out in my comfortable world? to furrowed and fery — why am i affronted with things i don’t want to see? then they’d notice my mother’s cart and all my skin would wince with their judgment — who would ever bring their child here? the women wouldn’t miss a beat their eyes would dart up and down my pubescent body — size me up in the 2.5 seconds it takes them to size up any woman of any age 52

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

and quickly surmise that i was no threat brown and round and dismal — far, far removed from anything that is them a half-glance telling me all the things i already knew their pace never slowing i’d just disappear right in front of them my mother never even materialized i remember shrinking further into myself i remember wondering what normal kids were doing, certain i was not normal i remember humiliation pulling me down down into hard brown carpeting carpeting my mother would soon vacuum while walking backwards out of the room so as to leave no footprints she: a ghost that empties trash cans me: a ghost of a ghost mija, i know you are angry at her for bringing you here i know you wish to shed her like old skin leave her and her cleaning cart and the hard carpet in another life and walk into a new one — a life where you roll up your sleeves for no reason — a life where you do more than haunt hallways in places you don’t belong you will — you will and your whole life when you see cleaning staf in the hall you’ll ofer them the warmest smile you can muster your eyes will glimmer ¡sí se puede! and they’ll look right at you and their eyes will beam back gracias you’ll take your lunch out back where they gather you’ll fnd every opportunity to tell them mi mamá también limpiaba oficinas and bask in their pride they will see their daughters in you as i see my mother in them as i see me in you that night as my childhood poured into the ofce foyer i pull myself to the present i turned my whole body to face you reaching--clumsily--- for something to give you i managed to say i remember coming to work with my mom at night, just like this… all the shame dropped from your brow we smiled at each other I see you, mija. You are no ghost.

Azahares 2020

53

Sólo tú y yo Galicia Gordon-Fernández Tanto el idioma como la gente, Los países y las culturas, Unidos, nunca rotos.

Ni un destrozo, ni confusión, Pero sólo una sola fusión.

Una mezcla, sin entrelazamiento, Una estrella, siempre brillante.

Nada que interfera, Con lo que siempre estaba destinado a suceder.

Las manos también pueden ser un lenguaje, Entendiendo cada punto de una mesa, Dirección para escapar de los problemas constantes.

Pequeñas plantillas y baile de tempo, Juntos y alineados juntos, Sólo tú y yo.

54

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Awakening by Luke and Mandy Woodford

Azahares 2020

55

Orange Marigolds Shyal Bhandari Five forty-fve in the afternoon on the 2 November 2019. A muddy side road of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. I’m trudging towards the main road in search of a cab. Every thirty seconds or so, the crack of lowbudget pyrotechnics can be heard faintly in the distance. The Londoner in me cannot help but hear a bomb. 9/11, 7/7, vehicle-rammings, multiple stabbings. I walk on, treading carefully… The freworks are in fact for the faithful deceased, welcoming their spirits back to the world of the living for just one day.

Finally, I manage to hail a taxi. “Good evening,” I say lowering my head to meet the taxi driver at the eyes. Approaching dusk, I never really know whether good evening or good afternoon is more appropriate. It’s hardly past six but it gets dark sooner these days, so evening it is.

“Good evening, jump in,” the driver responded. So I climb tentatively into the fimsy Nissan Tsuru, avoiding a cementy grey puddle. I sink deep into the cheap backseat interior.

“61B Calle Niño Perdido, do you know it?” I ask.

“Think so.” And so we go.

We are zigzagging through the stone paved one-way streets of San Cristóbal as the yellow-orange lights begin to glow against the new night.

The lacking suspension of the rickety Tsuru forces the topography of the road to vibrate along my spinal cord and between my ears, unlocking my jaw. We make a right up an impossibly steep road as the cabbie accelerates in frst.

“This is the street,” the driver says. “55A, B, C… 57A, B, C…” he continues until we reach Camilo’s house, 61B, braking frantically to avoid rolling back down the hill… I had been invited to this small get-together for Day of the Dead by Camilo, a writer and translator chum in his late twenties. Born in Altamirano, a small town not too far from here, he is dark-skinned, tall and slender with an angular face. The guy wears a panama hat to hide the fact that he’s already balding. I haven’t known him for long. We met at a writers’ circle in the city a couple of weeks ago, so I was a little surprised when he asked me if I’d come to tonight’s event for Day of the Dead. But I am new to this place and in need of allies, so here I am.

I step out of the taxi and pay the driver forty pesos. A trail of lit taper candles and the scent of incense lead me up the concrete steps and through a metal doorway which opens onto a poky courtyard flled with broken plant pots and sprouting greenery. On the left-hand side of the

56

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

courtyard is the living room where a group of brown-skinned folk are gathered around an altar covered in orange marigolds; but this is not an Indian wedding, not even close. As a matter of fact there is no place on Earth further from Mexico than India; the two spicy-food-eating, orangemarigold-loving nations are found on opposite sides of the world. In theory, if you were to drill a hole straight through our planet from Mexico City’s Zócalo, eventually you would resurface not too far from Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus Station.

The altar is for the dead. It is decorated with oferings of seasonal fruit and an old photograph of Camilo’s father. Below the altar are twenty or so candles, burning out fast, fames fickering, dripping hot wax onto the lacquered foorboards.

Camilo gestures, a wave, inviting me to sit and so I take a seat on a wooden stool in the corner of the room. He and a long-haired Mayan woman with an ancient face sit cross-legged on the foor, close to the candles. The Ancient One is reciting prayers for the dead, knocking on the gates of the other side. Is she his grandmother? They don’t look alike, but then again, generally men don’t tend to resemble grandmothers. Later I would be told that she is J’ilol, a Tsotsil oral poet from the Highlands of Chiapas who hardly speaks a word of Spanish (despite her markedly Spanish last names: Álvarez Callejas: inherited artefacts of a conquest that never quite achieved complete Castilianization). They say she has an exceptional knowledge of Mayan history, traditions and rituals, and that her breadth of vocabulary is unrivalled nothwithstanding her inability to read or write. A pure dominance of Bats’i K’op (the legitimate language) uncorrupted by the infuence of Spain. She is chanting variations of the same prayer over and over again in a mantra. Everybody else in the room is silently listening to her low-pitched guttural invocation.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Camilo’s father, Ramón, is still the same age as when he died: thirty-two. He’s still the irresponsible drunk who couldn’t seem to get his life together or hold down a job for long enough to receive a regular paycheck. Camilo had been told by his mother that his father was killed the night of the same day Camilo was born; that bad men had come looking for him and violently took him from their family. Camilo was told little else about his father. Naturally, the stories were fabrications. In his heart, Camilo knew as much to be true although he never sought the Truth, for he also knew that the Truth would result more damaging than the Lie. For many years Camilo’s mother, Somaya, had despised herself for loving her husband as much as she did and therefore putting up with as much crap as she did: stumbling home from La Bola Vieja (Altamirano’s

Azahares 2020

57

pool hall and only establishment that sells booze past midnight) at three in the morning only to piss himself in bed, being fred from countless jobs for his poor attendance, or more frequently his aggressive behaviour towards customers, and worst-of-all, his bullshit excuses and promises to Somaya and her unborn bump of a child. He wasn’t always that way. There was a time when Ramón had been a promising law student, when he shaved daily and could enjoy a beer or two, maybe three, but rarely four. When he could make his wife belly-laugh with his quiet but infectious sense of humour.

But for some time now, things were unchanged: a never-ending cycle of washing-machine cycles of piss-stained sheets for Somaya. To make ends meet, she was forced to work day and night on her sewing machine, embroidering foral designs onto shirts, receiving only twelve pesos per unit. With her son born, she’d had enough. She was done. It was one thing destroying herself for loving a man who had amounted to so little, but she wasn’t about to do the same to her boy. And so one cold December night, while Ramón was six-hundred pesos down at crabs at la Bola Vieja, Somaya packed a suitcase and wrapped her new-born child in a red woollen blanket, leaving to the city where she would grow old quickly, working as a seamstress.

Three weeks later, Ramón would be found dead from alcohol poisoning, lying face-down in a pool of his own vomit in his former marital bed. When Somaya learned of her husband’s death, she mostly felt relief.

Ramón’s routine had altered very little in the afterlife. Of course, there were major physiological changes to adjust to: a prosaic skull for a face, no hair, skin, or vital organs and so no more impure bodily functions, and therefore closer to God?... But apart from those minor details, it was more of the same for Ramón; now twenty-nine years dead, still thirty-two years old, he continues to spend evenings at La Bola Vieja.

The place has very few customers on the other side; nevertheless, there is a small but loyal clientele that frequent the haunt on most evenings.

It was never exactly a thriving business in the realm of the living, but over there, the pool hall is in a state of disrepair. The walls are plastered with tar from cigarette smoke and the once green pool tables are covered in a thick layer of bone dust. The fact is that beyond the veil, most people tend to spend their copious time with family, friends or old lovers, watching their favourite television shows on repeat or going for year-long holidays to the beach… leaving the pool hall drunks a rare, dying breed.

The loyal few, incapable of ingesting alcohol, have resorted to rubbing pool cue chalk into their bones to inebriate themselves. There is something about the highly alkaline constitution of chalk that reacts with the calcium of bones, producing a state of intoxication with a similar phenomenology to the bittersweet feeling of being drunk on aguardiente; only that rather

58

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

than knocking back shots, it takes around thirty minutes of continuous abrasion before one starts to feel the efects. It was, therefore, a desperate and decrepit scene on the second night of November at La Bola Vieja: four old jumbles of bones leaning against the pool tables, incessantly scraping themselves numb like a miserable, out-of-tune, mariachi.

And out of nowhere, something from nothing, a distant lowpitch rumbling... the front door of La Bola Vieja fung itself open and a providential gush of wind entered the bar, throwing decades worth of bone dust up into the stale air. Ramón and the others looked at each other: what the fuck was that? The four of them simultaneously put down their chalk and turned to face the gaping doorway. A strong stream of wind carried countless orange marigold petals which made their way directly towards Ramón who tood in the far corner of the bar. The enchanted vortex of petals enshrouded Ramón, lifting him of the ground.

It was the frst time that Camilo had placed a photograph of his father on the altar for Day of the Dead. In fact, it was the frst time anyone had placed a photograph of Ramón on their altar. Somaya had vowed that she never wanted to see Ramón again, and that vow extended into the afterlife. As such, no oferings were to be made for her former husband.

His presence was not welcome in her house (‘my house, my rules!’), not even in spirit form. She had reassured Camilo that it was better that way.

But this year Somaya had left the city to visit her newly widowed sister for the weekend. Camilo felt that with his mother absent, it was time to give his father the chance to visit, if only for a day. So he dug out the only photograph of him he possessed (taken while Ramón was a student at university), gave it a dust and placed it carefully on top of the altar.

Camilo had recruited The Ancient One for the occasion, given her immense spiritual talents and in particular, her rare ability to call upon the dead through prayer. And so with the candles lit, J’ilol began to chant.

The vibrations of the air particles from her breath were felt by the fames, which fickered in acknowledgement of the calling. The fames received the low-pitch frequencies of her mantra and transposed them to the other side, reverberating in the world of the dead, crossing the pitch-black hills, gathering force. The current fowing from J’ilol’s throat travelled like a perfectly tuned motorcycle speeding through a dark tunnel, towards the small town of Altamirano. As her voice blasted through the countryside, the airstream collected marigold petals, plucking them from the felds. By the time the orange-freckled airwave reached Ramón, blasting its way through La Bola Vieja’s entrance, the sound had distorted to a grumbling hum, the power of J’ilol’s calling lifting Ramón of his stick-feet.

Azahares 2020

59

Ramón, hovering in mid-air, rolled back his head and closed his eyes.

The jet stream of glowing orange marigolds dragged him head-frst out of La Bola Vieja and into the moonlit sky, guided by the stars of Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. Flying at four-hundred kilometres per hour over a mere silhouette of the mountains, Ramón felt his spirit come alive for the frst time in twenty-nine years.

He was gliding towards the city where his wife and son had escaped to and built a decent life for themselves in his absence, where they had been better of without him, to say the truth. Ramón knew that he had failed Somaya and Camilo in life, he knew that he was unft for fatherhood, but he also knew that Somaya was a resolute woman, tough as nails and would make a glorious mother regardless. He had often wondered what had become of them… what did his boy’s face look like?... was he handsome?... did he have a drinking problem?... how had Somaya aged?... was she with another man? (Unbeknownst to Ramón, his son, Camilo, is ruggedly handsome, with no drinking problem, but rather, a smoking habit. His wife, Somaya, had aged rapidly yet distinguishedly; she had been with four other men since Ramón’s death, but none of those brief afairs had lasted more than a few months).

Below him, Ramón could see the Periférico ring-road glow in red and white front and back brake lights. He felt the windchill of the city air deep in his bones. The stream of petals carried him above the city, over the spires of the imposing Guadalupe Church and swooping down a freakishly steep hill, bringing him to a halt at 61B Niño Perdido, landing softly on his tarsals…

A trail of nearly burned out candles guided him up the concrete steps and through the metal doorway…

With the candles now fully extinguished and J’ilol dozing of, lukewarm tamal in hand, I thank Camilo for his hospitality and make my exit. A white Tsuru is speeding down the street, its back tyres kicking up orange marigold petals into the air. With my arm fully stretched, I pull the taxi over. “Good evening,” I say, opening the door.

“Evening.”

“Avenida La Paz, please.” I close the door.

60

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Colorful Street, Nahuizalco, El Salvador by Jeremiah Gilbert

Azahares 2020

61

Ode to My Bilingual Tongue Esmeralda Gamez Half of you was torn out and stapled to another.

How unappreciated you are por hablar in two languages.

You always stumble with words like avocado, aguacate, avakadoe but you continue your graceful limp through conversaciones.

Dime, when you speak, do you taste the words or taste the desert sand your mother swallowed as she made her way here to you.

If I chew I taste las piedras y la dirt que no conozco.

Yo me trago all the words I’ve forgotten in one language.

I spit out what I need to make it through work, through la escuela.

My friend, I’ve never thanked you for your trabajo duro.

As you stumble but you speak Hablas to sanar La wound.

62

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Art Installation, San Juan, Puerto Rico by Jeremiah Gilbert

Azahares 2020

63

Ceniza de mi boca Manuel Carranza Llegué sin saber cómo, A la ciudad donde habitarás.

No por mi voluntad, sino por otra, Recorrí las desiertas calles, Tratando de encontrarte.

Sentía en las paredes y huecos, tus latidos.

Susurraban “confía.”

Era el diablo, Haciendo llover ceniza de mi boca.

(English) I arrived without knowing how here in the city where you perhaps lived I retraced deserted streets--urged not by my own will but by another’s—trying to fnd you.

I sensed in the walls and hollow spaces your biting heart, “Trust” it whispered.

It was the devil, who made ash rain from my mouth.

December, 2018 Richland Center, WI.

64

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Lista de contribuidores Reporter photographic and visual artist, Guilherme Bergamini is Brazilian and graduated in Journalism. For more than two decades, he has developed projects with photography and the various narrative possibilities that art ofers. The works of the artist dialogue between memory and social political criticism. He believes in photography as the aesthetic potential and transforming agent of society. Awarded in national and international competitions, Guilherme Bergamini participated in collective exhibitions in 29 countries. CV: http://guilhermebergamini.com/autor/ Shyal Bhandari es poeta, escritor y traductor británico. Es licenciado en Filosofía y Español de the University of St Andrews, Escocía. Nació en Londres, Inglaterra. Actualmente está viviendo en el sur de México, impartiendo talleres de creación literaria y traducción de poesía de lenguas mayas. Tiene 24 años.

Originalmente de Costa Rica, Anita Cantillo es el seudónimo de Shawn Bowers. Ella es profesora de inglés y literatura latina en Queens Universidad de Charlotte. Tiene una maestría en escritura creativa de Queens y ha sido publicada en Iodine Poetry Journal, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Convergence, y Label me Latina/o.

Manuel Carranza, (Querétaro de Arteaga, 2001). Ha contribuido con su trabajo a Solamente en San Miguel: A Literary Celebration Volume III (2017) de la San Miguel Literary Sala A.C. Así como también a la publicación estudiantil de Youth Initiative High School, la “YIHS Zine” (2019).

John Chavers disfruta trabajar como artista y fotógrafo. Su trabajo ha aparecido en The Oakland Review, The Emerson Review, THAT Literary Review, Saw Palm y The Healing Muse entre otros. Las exposiciones juradas recientes incluyen el Museo de Arte Missoula, el Centro de Arte Foundry, el Museo de Arte Amarillo, la Galería Mary Cosgrove Dolphin, los Estudios Orr Street, el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Rochester y la Galería Fuente de la Universidad de Purdue, así como una exposición individual reciente en la Galería Deiglan Gilfélagið en Akureyri, Islandia. En junio de 2020 será artista invitado en la Asociación de Artistas Visuales Islandeses (SIM) en Seljavegur en Reykjavík.

Julie Corrales es mexicana y costarricense de sangre, y estadounidense por los sacrifcios de sus padres. Sus ensayos han sido publicados en el San Diego Union Tribune y La Prensa San Diego; su poesía en La Bloga, un blog literario chicanx, e incluida en Palabra, An Open Mic, una antología.

Azahares 2020

65

John Phillip Davila estudió inglés en Our Lady of the Lake University donde completó su maestría. Recibió su doctorado de La Universidad de Luisiana en Lafayette donde estudió la poética, poesía estadounidense del siglo XX y la obra de Derridá. Se dedica a la poesía. Vive en San Antonio.

Wanda Díaz-Merced is an astronomer best known for using sonifcation to turn large data sets into audible sound. She currently works at the South African observatory’s Ofce of Astronomy for Development (OAD) leading the project AstroSense.

Alexandria (Ally) Dormois es estudiante de español y biología en la Universidad de Arkansas - Fort Smith. Después de graduarse, planea estudiar odontología. Le encanta viajar, especialmente en America del Sur. Le encanta aprender sobre culturas diferentes y aprender nuevas lenguas.

Sarah Degner Riveros nació en Chicago y estudió la literatura hispana en la Universidad de Illinois Urbana-Champaign, la Universitat de Barcelona, la Universidad de Columbia en New York. Enseña en la Universidad de Augsburg en Minneapolis, Minnesota. Es madre soltera; cría cinco hijos, dos perros, diez gallinas, y un gato.

Emanuela Franco. Periodista brasileña, con más de diez años de experiencia en Brasil y Europa (Portugal, España, Francia, Alemania, Italia, Eslovenia y Reino Unido). Desarrolla el proyecto fotográfco “Let’s Play” (Vamos a Jugar) a través de registros de imágenes de niños jugando al aire libre.

Esmeralda Gamez estudia en la Universidad de California en Fresno. Escribe poesía sobre experiencias personales, su familia, y comida. Su poesía ha sido publicada en publicaciones de su Universidad que incluyen The San Joaquin Review y Flies Cockroaches and Poets.

Elisa R.V. García es una escritora e investigadora mexicana que reside en Alemania. Elisa es doctora en letras comparadas y escribe principalmente en inglés (ocasionalmente también en alemán y español). Sus relatos han sido publicados en “Thrice Fiction”, “The Literary Nest”, “Oddville Press” y en “The Short Story Project”.

Jeremiah Gilbert es un galardonado fotógrafo y ávido viajero del sur de California. Sus viajes lo han llevado a más de ochenta países repartidos en los cinco continentes. Su fotografía ha sido publicada internacionalmente, tanto en publicaciones digitales como impresas, y ha sido exhibida en todo el mundo.

Galicia Gordon-Fernández es una escritora canadiense impulsada por temas sociales en el mundo actual, la mayoría de los cuales pasan inauditos. La

mayor parte de su trabajo consiste en expectativas, celos, deseo, dura realidad y mucho más. Con llamar la atención sobre estas cuestiones de las que puede ser difícil hablar, Galicia adopta un enfoque eufemístico de su escritura, manteniendo al mismo tiempo un sentido sincero de su trabajo.

María Guadalupe Guido nació en el municipio de Acámbaro, pertenecido al estado de Guanajuato en México. En el año 2000, su familia se mudó a Little rock Arkansas, Estados Unidos donde su padre estaba viviendo. María asistió a la escuela en los Estados Unidos. Ella asistió la primaria en Watson Elementary, Cloverdale Elementary y Chicot Elementary. Después ingresó la secundaria en Cloverdale Middle school y la preparatoria en Parkview Arts Science Magnet High School. Después, estudio dos años en University of Arkansas -Pulaski Technical College donde obtuvo su título asociado en arte. Finalmente está ahora estudiando en University of Arkansas at Little Rock para obtener su licenciatura en Español y Lingüística.

Jocelyn Hernandez nació en el Norte de California. Con mucho dolor de parte de sus papás, se mudó dos horas fuera de su casa a San Francisco donde practica mercadotecnia por la semana.

Mercedes Hernández vive en Fort Smith, Arkansas y es estuidante en la Universidad de Arkansas - Fort Smith. Se está especializando en español y tres subespecialidades en administración de negocios, justicia penal y ensañaza de inglés como segunda lengua.

Rosanna Jiménez es una periodista dominicana/americana que investiga la relación de tecnologías y el trabajo. Cuando no está escribiendo sobre tecnología, está trabajando en su poesía. Rosanna vive en Boston.

Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo es escritora, artista plástica, y maestra en el área de la bahía de California. Escribe de su experiencia como mujer de origen mexicano en los Estados Unidos, conciente de sus raíces indígenas.

Sus poemas aparecen en Nos Pasamos de la Raya y otras publicaciones. www.ejmontelongo.com Diego Luis es estudiante de doctorado en la facultad de historia de Brown University. Últimamente sus fotos han aparecido en About Place Journal, Glint Literary Journal, West Texas Literary Review, The Tischman Review y december Miguel Machado creció en Nueva York durante los años noventa. Fue allá ue entró en el mundo de la palabra y empezó a escribir poemas, primeramente al estilo de slam, pero luego al estilo de imagismo.

Recientemente trasladado a Lajas, Puerto Rico, continúa envolverse en imágenes y aventura.

Los poemas de John C. Mannone aparecen en North Dakota Quarterly, Anacua Literary Arts Journal, Artemis Journal, Poetry South, Acentos Review, Baltimore Review y otras publicaciones. Fue galardonado un Jean Ritchie Fellowship en Appalachian literatura (2017). Él es un profesor jubilado de física que vive cerca de Knoxville, TN http://jcmannone.wordpress.com Jef Schif Además de That hum to go by (Mammoth books, 2012), Jef Schif es autor de Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infnitude y Anywhere in this Country. Su trabajo ha aparecido internacionalmente en más de un centenar de publicaciones, incluyendo The Alembic, Grand Street, The Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, Tulane Review, Tampa Review, The Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City (The Pinch), Indiana Review, Willow Springs y The Southwest Review. Actualmente se desempeña como decano interino de la escuela de estudios de posgrado en Columbia College Chicago, donde ha estado en la facultad desde 1987.

Makaela Swinney tiene veintidós años. Es estudiante en la universidad de Fort Smith, Arkansas. Su especialización es el liderazgo de organizaciiones y su especialización secundaria es español.

Deborah K. Symons Roldan, es escritora, lingüista y lectora de español en la Universidad de Yale. Nacida en Barcelona, ha vivido y trabajado en los Estados Unidos durante 22 años. Sus cuentos han sido publicados en la revista de UC Santa Barbara Ventana Abierta y en Baquiana.

José Trejo-Maya. Yo soy un vestigio de la tradición oral Nahuatlacah un tonalpouhque Mexica del bajio (e.g. México). De otro tiempo y lugar que ya no existe. Mi poesía se ha publicado en Inglaterra, E.E.U.U., España, India, Australia, Argentina, Alemania y Venezuela...Este perfl sicológico surgió durante una ceremonia en la reservación del Rio Tulare con chamanes chololo.

Luke & Mandy Woodford are a married, photographic team. Although Luke clicks the shutter and Mandy is the muse, the duo collaborate in the creative process on every image, from concept to completion. Their fne art photography is sold to luxury interior designers and private buyers all over the world. Their frst book titled ‘2.5’ is currently for sale in selected bookshops throughout the UK. Roxy Wylie es una estudiante no-tradicional en la Universidad de Arkansas - Fort Smith. Espera enseñar historia a travez de la literatura. Le encanta la lengua castellana y espera seguir aprendiéndola toda la vida.

68

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Engage in Culture with the World Languages Department The literary magazine Azahares forms part of the array of professional opportunities which the World Languages Department at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith provides its students and the greater region.

The Bachelor of Science in Spanish with teacher licensure at UAFS is designed for future teachers who desire to make an important impact on the education of others through their ability to engage and motivate students. This degree prepares students to teach Spanish at grade levels K through 12. Courses prepare students in topics such as Spanish language and Latino culture, linguistic characteristics of the Spanish languages, and language pedagogy.

The Bachelor of Arts in Spanish prepares student to meet the qualifcations for employment opportunities in medical, business and government service, as well as to complete graduate work in Spanish. As part of the graduation requirement for both of these degrees, semester study-abroad options provide Spanish majors the opportunity to immerse themselves in the language and culture of Latin America.

The World Languages Department also ofers the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) - Certifcate of Profciency as an endorsement for Teaching English as a Second Language, grades P-12. This program of study exceeds the minimum credit hour requirements for the Arkansas Department of Education and addresses all the competencies identifed for the licensure area. TESL Certifcation allows teacher licensure candidates to add an Arkansas state ESL (English as a Second Language) endorsement to their teaching license. Current UAFS students can add these courses to enhance their future employability. Teachers already working in the feld can add this endorsement as well. TESL Certifcation is also designed for international students who are preparing to teach English as a Second Language.

For more information on the World Languages Department at UAFS, please feel free to contact Dr. Mary A. Sobhani, Department Head at Mary.Sobhani@ uafs.edu. Visit us at www.uafs.edu or fnd us on Facebook @UAFS-World Languages Department and @UAFS Azahares.

Azahares 2020

69

Azahares 2021 Call for Submissions Submission Deadline: January 19th, 2021 Priority is given to Spanish language works. If in English, the submission must thematically refect Latino culture. All artwork and photography must refect the culture of the Spanishspeaking world.

GENERAL SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES: ONLINE SUBMISSIONS ONLY • Submittable: https://azaharesliterarymagazine.submittable.com/submit • Each author or artist may submit up to three of his/her works for publication.

• Each author or artist must submit a 60 word biography in Spanish, written in 3rd person.

• Please submit in word .doc or .docx format • No .pdfs POETRY SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: • Poems must be submitted in the page layout intended for publication.

• 200-line maximum per poem PROSE SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: • 3,500 maximum word count ARTWORK/PHOTOGRAPHY SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: • Color and black-and-white submissions are accepted.

• Indicate medium used on the submission form (watercolors, oils, digital photography, etc.)

• Save with as high a resolution as possible (between 300 and 1200 dpi)

ANTICIPATED PUBLICATION DATE: SPRING 2021

70

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | uafs.edu

Mosaico Morisco NĂşmero 7 por John Chavers

“Lo que diferencia azar de azahar, lo que hace que el uno no huela a nada y el otro sí, es la h, que es una hache de perfumería.”

— Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Greguerías