"Llorona" by Cristina Paul

They say I appear in different places, to different people, at the same time. Saints bilocate too. If I had wings, my flapping would make every verb a we. Pain has splintered me. I am detached, restless, scattered to the wind of people’s wants. I am the necessary monster, the needed threat, the whispered warning. I am forever in your mouth. I do penance. Nothing is ever anyone’s but a woman’s fault. Have you never wept? Throat empty tired, so much squelching over the past? Lucky you, if you’ve never walked against a current until you turn the river red. But I know, even if we do it in hot, locked cars, us cryers are many-numbered, numinous. Underneath the waters, underneath our skeletons, there is ancient hunger, a shared and staggering scream. What if instead of inconstancy, a man let us throw these hands that mother and matter and mutter around a sturdy neck? What if we had floated downstream together, nothing good getting away? We could have kissed our children like they didn’t know what kisses were. We could have sung. Love has made me small. ————————————– Cristina Paul called us from Los Angeles, CA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems