Luis Lopez-Maldonado – Poetry
Making you pretty again
For Marisol
Organs are moved,
Lips are sewn into a new smile,
Veins drained of DNA,
And underneath your bruised chest,
An empty space
Where your heart once was.
Thirteen fourteen stitches
In and out of skin,
Blood dripping
From your inner thighs
Like strawberry syrup.
Your milk skin was torn by teeth
Of six men:
One there,
Two here,
Another there
And the rest warm in your hands,
In your mouth,
In front of you with a camera.
Your little black dress
Ripped to shreds,
Your blue Jimmy Choo’s
No where to be found,
A blue pill in your martini,
And the rest
You said,
You don’t remember.
But with this poem
I plant seeds
That will flourish
Into something else
Than what’s in front of me,
Maybe an apple tree or cherry tree.
Today:
Your sad eyes,
Your yellow eyes,
Your left too weak to see out of,
Your shampooed hair,
Your dark curls,
And your trembling legs
Not spread-open
Like chopsticks anymore,
But closed,
Crossed,
The way you were
Inside
Your mother’s belly
Before you were born;
Untouched
Slouched
Whole.
LUIS LOPEZ-MALDONADO was born and raised in Orange County, CA. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California Riverside, majoring in Creative Writing and Dance. His work has been seen in the American Poetry Review, Cloudbank, The Packinghouse Review, Off Channel, and Spillway, among others. He is single and currently living in Tallahassee, Florida where he is a candidate for the Master of Arts degree in Dance at Florida State University.
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