i remember
sobbing
sobbing
sobbing
to you
when she died
for us,
crying is how we
show our neck
our soft belly to the
panther’s sickle
to say:
‘you may strike me
if you so please’
i carry grief
like the midwife carries
water in the woven
basket
like the spring
like the
(womb / wound)
of the earth
it only
trickles
out
Arturo Cota is a Chicano poet from California’s San Joaquin Valley. His work has appeared in Soft Cartel, Angry Old Man Magazine, and Oak: A Journal Against Civilization.
