Three Poems By Madari Pendas
Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
How to Make a Latina
Add some forearm hair and a hand that will work to pat the field down, slanted away. Crops ignoring the summer sun
Make sure the hair grows in so dark she thinks she's holding fistfuls of night
Give her her father's mixed nose and teach her to run from her mother who wants to straighten it under the clamp of a clothespin’s mouth
Let her retain her language the dips and splits and feral Rsssss
& vitesse that reminds listeners this is one of our own
Teach her to stare at mirrors at some point,
she'll learn to love what she sees
Don't let her be like me a bad Latina an angry Latina
one that doesn't want to pluck hairs from their roots for gringo gardeners
Teach her to name trees banyans royal poincianas baobabs
to go to the orchids white mariposas and magnolia with her wants
Maybe the girl needs to be angry,
a dirge her organs sing for themselves. Made and unmade. Colonized. Colonizer.
Don't let her watch TV or see the way others have revived/imagined/crafted her
sexy always sexy always nalgas y tetas y long, shaved legs in tacones
That could pierce a bee's antenna don't build in imitation
that's why language helps you can find yourself in those early
grunts and vowels not yet American
I Try to Imagine Myself Giving Birth
But I can't.
I can't imagine making life.
Fighting with nurses. Doctors.
My own bones sucked clean
of calcium.
I want the noise. The too many
people in bed with no recourse
but to laugh. Argue. Play push.
I want the house to spill over,
overflow, drenched with problems
that now, at this age, are funny.
I'd like to argue about whether fish
feel pain with my children
over battered & fried calamari,
balancing a ring on my tongue.
Why does it all depend on my body?
That thing that struggles to stay slim.
To eat clean. To posture correctly. And
still bleeds through her underwear
& PJ pants each month.
Why does a life
depend on such a small,
struggling ecosystem?
I want to laugh as my teens
tell me I don't know computers
& play music too loud
& burn pots & scratch skillets & stain the stovetop,
splattered marinara and loose garlic skin,
as we cook together, elbow to elbow,
mis-reading instructions, wine passing
across our hands. Teeth stained. Apronless.
Demands for more cheese. Not enough room
to shred mozzarella, to avalanche it,
so we do it in the little pockets of space
our bodies allow in the kitchen.
Church Girl
Begin with the word
WITNESS
Now this is a story of testimony,
or survival.
See the girl. Violet cotton dress.
Mary janes. Eyes so large you wonder what they can't see.
Begin with the word
SUNDAY
Now this is story of faith
or time.
How long does it take for the girl to believe?
How long are forty years?
How does time pass so slowly on Sundays?
Begin with the word
PRETTY
Now this is a story of vanity
Or the need for beautiful things.
The church ladies, plumed, plump,
perfumed, a wash of sunsets. How
can one believe in something that has no aesthetic?
Move to the word
SECONDS
Now this is a story of endurance
Or of waiting.
Praying indoors makes time slow.
The coughs, sniffles, ums and ers,
remind you that you are competing for God's attention.
Think of the word
PUNCTURE
Now this is a story of openings
Or of wounds.
How could HE have been made with love?
That rapture of a body giving to a formless hope,
making little lungs & eyes, so generously imbuing.
End with the word
SPOONBILL
Now this is a story of flight
Or rare sightings.
How far would we go if us girls could fly?
Imagine at any moment, the beat of air
against the sprawl of wings, the shadows they'd throw.
Imagine what they'd say.
Imagine the stories they'd tell.
About the Author
Madari Pendas is a writer, poet, painter, and cartoonist. She received her MFA from Florida International University, where she was a Lawrence Sanders Fellow, and won the 2021 Academy of American Poets Prize, judged by Major Jackson. Her work has appeared in Craft, Smokelong Quarterly, The Masters Review, Oyster River Pages, PANK, and more. She is the author of Crossing the Hyphen (2021) and She Loves me, She Loves me Not (2025).