Lourdes Figueroa is an oral poet. Her poems are a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. The words el azadón are used by the ones who work in the fields – the work of tilling the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl and Ruidos = To Learn Speak, completed during her Alley Cat Books Residency. She received her MFA in Poetry at the University of San Francisco. She is a recipient of the 2021 Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry selected by emeritus poet Laureate Kim Shuck. She works and lives in Oakland with her wife, filmmaker, Peggy Peralta. Together in July of 2020 they launched Bilbil Projects, a space where poem & film come together. Lourdes is a native of limbo nation. Lourdes continues to believe in your lung and your throat.
en todos los octubres
let us plant entire montes with tulip bulbs
come spring we are going to need an army
of blossoms love
to graze upon
the essential things
a bowl of frijoles de la olla recién hechos
our muttering tripas y el frio entre la costilla
when the day es esa hora tan floja
el tiempo comiéndose así mismo vivo
olores de tortilla de harina quemada
chile del árbol picando la garganta
the surprise autumn moth
estrellándose mil veces en la ventana
y la blanca pared entre nos
amarillo sol on the seat of the old wooden chair
apariendo like it will collapse
aún nunca nunca se quiebra
& the most ancient of all
el piso recién trapeado
al fin de todo nosotras a solas
hablando la lengua de las diosxxs
apretadas juntas en la cama
los nombres de todos los cuerpos grieving false world
en nuestra saliva
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over & over mis manos de trabajador keep this memory of childhood
small warm tierna learning to hold the dying bodies of los abuelitos de los gringos
& us playing bingo on a wasted cold Sunday, it was the first week of October love
our whole life span happened here¾ el reloj grande pegostiando los segundos en el pasillo
las noticias de la televisión gritando guerra sobre nuestros cuerpos
was it a dream? as your dreamlike lips quietly muttered about us
tu cara wrinkled nonconsensual prayers like yellow remnants of summer
when I was a little girl chubby
caterpillars entered my soul
{august 11, 2024}
