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.
