Sotelo - Virgin: poems

Berend, 1859, courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London Author photo by Brooke Lightfoot 18 19 20 21 22 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from Wells Fargo. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sotelo, Analicia, author. Title: Virgin : poems / Analicia Sotelo. Description: Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, [2018] Identifiers: LCCN 2017030827 (print) | LCCN 2017040484 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571319777 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571315007 (softcover : acid-free paper) Classification: LCC PS3619.O862 (ebook) | LCC PS3619.O862 A6 2018 (print) | DDC 811/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017030827 Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship.

We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Virgin was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Thomson-Shore. To mom and dad, with all my love Table of Contents

I am a Mexican American fascinator. Let me cluck my way to an empty field where my husband stays silent & the stars are the arachnid eyes of my mother-in-law: duplicitous, ever-present in the dark. Im not afraid of sex. Im afraid of his skeleton knocking against the headboard in the middle of the night. Im afraid I am a blind goat with a ribbon in my hair, with screws for eyes. Im afraid wherever I walk, its purgatory.

I meet a great lake with rust-colored steam rising, someone somewhere has committed murder, hides in the bushes with an antique mirror. The virgins are here to prove a point. The virgins are here to tell you to fuck off. The virgins are certain theres a circle of hell dedicated to that fear youll never find anyone else. You know what it looks like: all the loverscloaked in blood & salt & never satisfied, a priest collar like a giant tooth in the midnight sky. I want to know whats coming in the afterlife before I sign off on arguments in the kitchen & the sight of him fleeing to the car once he sees how far & wide, how dark & deep this frigid female mind can go.

TASTE Summer Barbecue with Two Men Tonight, the moon looks like Billie Holiday, trembling because there are problems other people have & now I have them, too. Im wearing a cherry-colored cardigan over a navy print dress, on purpose. People think Im sweet. I try the ancho chile pork ribs, in case the man I once wanted might still rub off on me. I wonder if Ill ever know about flavors, what tastes right. In the overheated kitchen, I chat briefly with a series of thirty-something-year-old menall slender, all bearded, lustful to the point of sullen.

I hug & compliment their pretty female partners as a way of saying, I am beautiful in my harmlessness! Outside, people. A circle of party chairs. I dont care much for a strangers guacamole. The man I once wanted is grilling these beautiful peaches. He offers some Im embarrassed. I try not to touch his hand.

I try to touch his hand. On the porch, another man I know is kissing the shoulder of a woman whose fianc is here somewhere. Guess what, he says. Youre the only one who cares. I wouldnt have guessed: judgment is a golden habaero margarita with wings, wet & cold on his chest. So many people are tender from the right angle. Im hungry & confused.

I love a good barbecue. Save me. A Little Charm She floats like a lost brain cell. Her body is a sleek brown lamp from 1929. She arches and slurs. Gentlemen in winter coats would like to cover her.

Gentlemen in thick winter coats hand her new cigars. She nods like a child under the influence of milk. She appeals with eyes as wide as money. Even in alleys, her legs look like unfiltered honey. Her moods are expensive. Shes all lit up.

Gentlemen order her whiskey and whiskey and horses dip her gloves into the whiskey with their mouths. They love her. They want to sweep her up with their tongues until she learns to stand straight. She never learns. I did not suspect I would like her. I did not expect to give her this loving little push out the door.

You Really Killed That 80s Love Song Now someone else is kissing him on a wrought iron balcony above the karaoke bar, and its not animal exactly, not pretty either, the drunken howling behind you as you act like youre not watching, like youre talking on the phone on a wet Texas night instead of doing what you should have done before. Now its raining harder. Now youre driving home at 2 a.m. on a road thats slick as sex and you can still hear your friend David saying theres no way you could be in love if youve never been loved in the first place. Now youre curled in bed. Now the sun drifts to your knees.

Youve discovered humiliation is physically painful: the crown-like stigmata of a peach thats been twisted, pulled open, left there. The juices must run somewhere. You cant help but imagine the knife in his body, her body. The pink, cloudy aubade you were waiting for. Expiration Date All my acquaintances are coupled up like hamsters with advanced degrees. I like the children they havent had and the fine bourbon jam theyre saving.

Im a radish tonight, for everyone has been flowering with careful hellos and its made me red and pungent, made me sick of potluck drinking under the stars with the weeds brushing their blond hair against my ankles, sick of the clear buttons of sweat on their skin and their salty arguments about whos best at breathing, whos better at playing nurse. I am done with you, couples. We are breaking up. I will see you on the floodwaters in your restored pine boat, looking hard for your Foucault, your baseball caps, your grandmothers velvet couch, but I will not stop for you because you always say, Oh, us? Were