Naomi Quiñonez

poetry

We Are All Connected

We are all connected
to the belly of the earth
Each soul kicking-out
Flames fed by the heat,
of magma, lava and crust.

Billions of umbilical cords
Tied to a common center.
We are a bouquet of flowers
balloons and bellies
that cannot escape
each others breath
cannot escape
each other’s divine imperfect lives
Or profane and comic deaths.

This is how I know the pain
Of flesh sliced to pieces
By instigated metal
Cutting through air
To make its mark
On children huddled
In futile corners
Of scattered rubble. 

This is how I feel
The twisted gut-wrenched cry
Of desperation
In the torn stomachs of women
Who watch loved ones
Explode into heaps of useless ash.
Yesterday’s frightened eyes
Melting into pockets of charred skin.

This is how I see
A civilization disappear
Under a blood-stained blanket
Held by men armed with lies and terror
Another piece of humanity
Ripped out of the womb
Of mother earth
Another dream of peace
Raped at gunpoint.

My belly is a heavy weight
I carry into the uncertainty
Of each hesitant day.

My heart is a bruised
Eruption
Of haphazard futures.
 
The center tugs hard
Yanks the collective heart
Clears the common eye
Pulls the blood from our tangled veins.

And if you don’t feel this
You are lying.

When you Look at Me

            I
When you look at me
You see motel maids
changing sheets
in the pink & grey rooms
Your parents stay in.

You see dark brown women
on their knees scrubbing floors
in Baja restaurants
or standing with a blue-eyed child
on each hip.

It doesn’t matter if I wear
tweed suits and pace the floor
on Givenchy heels
in front of busy chalk boards

You see Lupita the nanny
in your T.V. mind.
She wears mismatched clothes
and slides heavily on leather huaraches
towards her unwashed children.

To you I am an aberration
that confuses your senses
and blurs your vision.
It is difficult for you to
say “Dr. Quiñonez.”
You want me to remain nameless
silent, invisible.

But I stand before you 
speaking your language
and teaching you things
you are not sure of.

Now you must either change
your misguided notions of who I am
Or kill the me
that cannot live in your world.

             II
When you look at me
you see educated nipples
intelligent legs
a brilliant ass.

You chica, mija, chula me
until you get beyond the fact
that I have a PhD.

In department meetings
I call for broad visions
and student needs.
You envision a broad
who can meet your needs.
 
You are unfamiliar
with a  woman
who can see through
your  veneer.
My loud clear voice
threatens your ears.  

To you I am expendable
like the woman who keeps
taking you back
like the mother who is
always there to feed you.

Like that part of yourself
that you thought you destroyed
when you decided to become
A thin worn metallic chair…
A conflict without a resolution. 

The Smoking Mirror

A Chicana poet who speaks from the heart and embraces the struggles and people she has known since childhood.

Francisco Lomeli
"As a warrior of language, she aims to rupture silence and fill it with a new vitality."

Book Description
This is the second volume of poems by Naomi Quiñonez to be published by West End Press. The first, Sueno de Colibri/Hummingbird Dream, appeared in 1985. In this book the Los Angeles-born Chicana poet extends her geographical range, having lived in the last decade in Claremont, California; Charleston, West Virginia; and Paradise, California. Her poems, whether political, romantic, whimsical, or traditional, speak from the heart and embrace both the struggles and the people she has known since childhood.
"Contained here is history, myth, the struggle to survive and to create. It is poetry that questions and finds no facile answers. It asks us to look into ourselves. It is unforgiving and it is lovely." -Tey Diana Rebolledo bilingual review press