Rebecca Gonzales: “Remember to Remember”

Cultivated by the sun and moon, peeking past the shoes dangling from the phone lines, Rebecca Gonzales was raised and resides “one block East of El Pino” in (East) el Pueblo de Nuesta senora la Reina de Los Angeles. Rebecca’s work has been published in various literary anthologies and journals such as Issue 1 of Dryland Lit, Brooklyn and Boyle, Inchas de Poesia, the Mas Tequila Review, issues 3, 5 & 8 of San Antonios St. Sucia, Connotation Press, Literature for Life and others. She was the March 2014 winner of “The Poets of New York” series at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. She is the creator and curator of the series “Fails in Sexlandia,” a monthly dose of our foibles in love lust and beyond. You can find her work on Instaram at @ladydrug. As a mother she is humbled, as a poet she is obedient, and as a woman she is unapologetic.

*****

Remember to Remember

Remember how to pray
Remember the raw knees
Remember me
In the biting and gnawing
the skin falling away from the flesh
Teeth chattering against femur and vertebrae
Remember
You called me missing
Placed pink crosses in the dessert
Between here and a blind eye
Between La Llorona tales
and the reclamation of 43 un marked graves
Recuerdame
Cuando la lluvia llege
Remember how quickly the river rises
when you are wading for help;
land shifting undertow
life breaking on your chest
stopped in your tracks
a bullet in your back
remember how to pray
Cuando la lluvia ahoga
Remember to remember
We are all drinking from the same poisoned well
Remember to kill a people
Its women and children first
Remember freedom is a gushing spring
A fountain of youth
An American dream
For anyone who can pay
Recuerdame cuando deje de llover
When the rain stops
When the sky opens up
When we collect all of our “nows”
When those “nows” stop looking like “back thens”
When our boys can raise their hands to bless the day
and our daughters can walk safely in their bodies
no longer bare the sweaty cock of clergy and state
remember to remember
we have been here before.

 

(Author photo by Alexis Rhone Fancher.)

What are you looking for?