“I had a bride / I sawed her in half / Couple people cried / But most of them just laughed / Most of them just laughed.” -- Jason Isbell, “The Magician”

Rachel Ronquillo Gray is a Kundiman, Pink Door, Las Dos Brujas, and VONA fellow. Her work has appeared on Public Radio International, Hyphen Magazine, Glass, Tinderbox Poetry, Tahoma Literary Review, and other places. She currently lives, writes, and makes food in Bloomington, Indiana, all with her daughter strapped to her chest.

Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Rachel, what poems have you brought for us today?

On Crying in Public
Cry as much as you want. Be that
girl in the corner, drunk on Benadryl
and Franzia, eating all the pizza and crying.
Babies cry when they’re uncomfortable,
when they don’t know how to say
they’re unhappy. Don’t get it twisted—
you’re not a baby. What I’m saying
is when there’s no vocabulary for it,
there is only sensation, a feeling
that something is not right. You’ll say
far too often, I don’t know why I’m crying,
but you know why you’re crying. One night,
a person you think you could love yells
at you about your missing hair tie,
and you feel small. Whatever you do,
don’t hold in the tears on your way
to the grocery store. If you do, your throat
will swell like a volcano full of wails, and tears
will leak out anyway, and you will soak your jacket
sleeves wiping salt water from your cheeks,
and you’ll pretend your sniffles are allergies
in December, and you will see your reflected
face, all shadow in the car window, and you
will feel so small. And your heart will grow
small too. It will clench itself like a toothed
fly trap, shutting in and swallowing all
the flies, using them for food.

My Americana
He sat behind me and pulled my hair.
He took my pencils when I wasn’t looking.
He cheated off my English homework.
He giggled with the other boys when I walked
into the classroom. Like everyone else,
he called me Americana. And then, I found his
note in my backpack during a muddy walk home.
The birds and the trees read only this
over my shoulder, and they were cackling.
It made me sick. I wanted to cry. I felt like he had
seen me in my underwear. My embarrassment
was a well where I lost my face. I tore up the note,
threw it into the forest. It glowed against the muddy
Mik-Mik wrappers. It embarrasses me even now
to recall this. It is not about young love. It is about
the next day, how I expected change. That he would stop
and recall this. It is not about young love. It is about
Mik-Mik wrappers. It embarrasses me even now
to think of the note in the forest. Glowed against the muddy
well where I lost my face. I tore up the note,
like he had seen me in my underwear. My embarrassment
makes me sick. I want to cry. I felt like he had
whispered over my shoulder, and he was cackling.
The birds and trees read only this note
in my backpack during a muddy walk home.
Only they did not call me Americana. I found his
pencils and broke them. When I walked into
the classroom, he giggled with the other boys.
He cheated off my English homework.
He took my pencils when I wasn’t looking.
He sat behind me and pulled my hair.

Half Face Song
-after Alex Katz’s The Black Dress
All my pretty black dresses and my serious
hairstyles. They mean business. They mean
quiet undertows. Men with half-faces have no idea
I have so many possibilities. My legs blue.
My legs yellow-nyloned. My hair in blue-black
shine. My hair flipped one way. My hair Niagarafalling
down the back of a chair. My hair smeared
into a doorway. I can have half a face too.
Dear men, you cannot dream of all my paintings.
You cannot dream of all my black dressed looks.
How I can wear my black dress one day and say,
Look at all my flashy pearls, this collarbone of mine.
I can wear my black dress the next day and say, Nothing
sparkles on me. I am boring. I am bored. My
half-faced woman can wear a black dress. Watch you
from the corner of her one eye. I give her a basket
to keep a mirror in. I want her to always dream
her face’s other half.

You've been listening to poems by Rachel Roquillo Gray on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.