#chasing duende

[lifeinpoetry]

. . . love is an endangered word, untranslatable, its etymology closer to that of raven or he who won’t let me touch him—What if my wrists bleed from such longing? What if I choke on a picture? What if I forget the thinness of my waist at dawn & lose myself to magic? What then? Will I ever recover?

— Yesenia Montilla, from "Chasing Duende," Muse Found in a Colonized Body

[tuduende]

How to Triumph Like a Girl

Ada Limón

I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let’s be honest, I like that they’re ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to tug my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it’s going to come in first.

Ada Limón is a National Book Awards finalist for her most recent collection of poetry, Bright Dead Things