Here’s our May installment of “Bushwick Bohemia Beat Poetry” curated by Bushwick-born poet, Emanuel Xavier. The series features poems by Bushwick residents. This month’s poem comes from Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz.
SEMÁFORO
1.
Don’t panic
When mami is learning to drive
And where you’re from there’s no real seatbelt laws
No one to reinforce them
Nothing to hold you
And when she slams the breaks
Your little body flies from the back seat onto the dashboard
Your lips break open like how your fingers dig into an egg’s shell on Saturday mornings
In the clinic inside the driving school
the nurse tells you to not panic
2.
You refuse to drive
You have so many excuses
You’re always afraid to lose control
You bike to school even though
It is hours away
even after Chuy gets deported to Costa Rica
He offers you to keep his car
It’s an Astrovan, with the words “Pura Vida” on the
front license plate
Tempting, but you can’t really bear it
3.
Don’t panic
When you’re sitting in the passenger seat
Your mother at the wheel
She is trying to tell you something
But there’s no real way to say it
No one to support you
Nothing to hold you
And when finally she tells you that she had to marry her rapist
Your father (her rapist)
Your heart breaks open like how your fingers dig into an egg’s shell on Saturday mornings
4.
You refuse to drive
You have so many excuses
You let everyone else take the wheel
Your eyes can only see what is closest to them
Even when you start to piece it all together
how she makes you wear longsleeve shirts and pants in the Miami summer
The silences
Overwhelming, but you can’t really bear it
5.
Don’t panic
When the man that loves you more than anyone else
That calls you gato
That kisses your teenage forehead goodnight
A man that left you on a different planet as a child
Fleeing
With nothing to hold you
How do you bear it?
You breathe
In and out
And you don’t panic
Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz is a multimedia artist, curator, and educator born in Lima, Perú. She is the Teen Programs Coordinator at the Brooklyn Museum, the visual arts co-curator at Nat. Brut as well as a founding member and co-curator of Sweety’s, a gallery and platform dedicated to supporting and exhibiting artists of color. Izquierdo Ugaz is the author of the self-published “Standing in the Bathroom in the Dark Thinking About Green” and” El Mismo Pozo/The Same Well.” Her work has appeared in FEELINGS and her first chapbook is titled “Estoy Tristeza” (No, Dear Magazine & Small Anchor Press, 2018).
Catch Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz and Emanuel Xavier at a reading at Starr Bar (214 Starr Street, L train to Jefferson Street) on Saturday, May 19 at 7 pm, FREE EVENT.You can follow her at @besodemoza.
Cover image by Wes Hicks
