FEASTING ON FETISH: Installment number 4

In this our fourth and final installment of “Feasting on Fetish: A Chorus,”—a collective response to Orlando Ricardo Menes’ collection Fetish (University of Nebraska Press)—

we have two creative responses to two of the book’s poems, respectively.

In the first, Lynda Letona responds to Menes' poem “Maracas of Rain” with an original piece titled “Apocryphal Psalm I” followed by its Spanish companion “Salmo Apócrifo I”—poems that pay homage to/mirror the rhythm and syntax of the original that inspired it.

In the second, Lauren Espinoza, taking her cue from Menes’ poem, “Television, A Patient Teacher,” keeps the title and creates an original work rooted in a tenderly told family story of her own, with a subtly subversive twist.

Apocryphal Psalm I

Grace is your tender

touch

by the cool waters

of our Eden.

To love in secret is

to dissolve

in Purgatory’s Sea,

drift sweetly

upon our back,

sunset sinking.

 

Penance is your absence,

the wait I endure

before your gaze cuts 

my frame. Aroused,

in furrows,

the valley in your back

my red stigmata;

no need to flagellate.

Your bed sheets,

twisted waves

I brave

your hair, dark veil

eyes obsidian.

I lose and find myself.

Warm is your breath,

searing your tongue

(lengua rara, ligera,

me excita)

I bless with my palm.

Our hearts plead

for mercy, synchronous

seraph song.

Salmo apócrifo I

Gracia es tu tierno

roce

sobre las aguas frescas

de nuestro Edén.

Amar en secreto es

disolverse

en purgatorio mar,

nadar dulcemente

de espalda,

sol sumergiéndose.

Penitencia es tu ausencia,

la espera que tolero

antes que tu mirada corte

mi figura. Excitado,

en surcos,

el valle de tu espalda

mi estigma roja;

ni necesidad de flagelarse.

Tus sábanas,

olas retorcidas

enfrento

tu pelo, oscuro velo

ojos de obsidiana.

Me pierdo y encuentro.

Cálido tu aliento,

quemando tu lengua

(strange tongue, agile,

excites me)

bendigo con mi palma.

Nuestros corazones ruegan

misericordia, canto

síncrono de serafín.

Lynda Letona is an MFA student, editor for Notre Dame Review, and collaborator for Letras Latinas at University of Notre Dame. She received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of South Dakota. Her poetry and nonfiction has appeared in Ostrich Review, Liternational, and Hotmetalpress. She is currently working on a collection of poetry titled, House of Dark Writings, exploring the Spanish conquest of the Mayas. Lynda was raised in Guatemala and California. Her special interests include film, theatre, and multicultural literature.

*

Television, a Patient Teacher

           

after Orlando Ricardo Menes

 Television was the sibling I never had, the extra person at the dinner table. 

Murphy Brown complaining on Monday nights and Wings never leaving the hangar

on Thursdays.  I remember sitting on the couch with my great-grandmother,

Sabado Gigante blaring at us, waiting for the Chacal to come out and blow his horn

while the contestants tried to sing their way to stardom or (more importantly) win

the car. Sabado Gigante was in Spanish, and although I laughed along with the laugh

track during the appropriate moments, I never understood the jokes. 

Holding my hand, she delighted in seeing me laugh as we sat together

those many hours on a Saturday. 

Sundays in the afternoons, my dad would play back the VHS recording

of Star Trek: Voyager, him fast forwarding through the commercials,

as we joked that he would be a Klingon if we lived during a Starfleet era. 

Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine haunted my imagination, as you could see

everything through their Starfleet uniforms.  I didn’t remember paying attention

to this, only being embarrassed for noticing it afterwards. Voyager helped me

understand that even in the future the most pertinent threat is assimilation.

Not a fanciful device that whisked me away to a fantasy world, television is family;

taught me what it means to laugh, to not be ashamed of love, and how to use my words:

instead of the language of escape coerced out when watching

favorite characters every week, what I learned was how to remember. 

Lauren Espinoza’s poetry has appeared in Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25, New Border Voices: An Anthology, The Mas Tequila Review, The Acentos Review, and Souvenir.  She has poems forthcoming in Raspa, Sinister Wisdom, and Pilgrimage.  She is an inaugural member of the Letras Latinas Poets Initiative, the Workshop Assistant for CantoMundo, a Teaching Artist with Badgerdog, and currently a graduate student in the M.F.A. Program in Poetry at Arizona State University.