El cuerpo avisa

By LUPE MENDEZ

Todo mi maíz se llevó, ni pa’comer me dejó
El Barzón.
—Luis Pérez Meza

Esas tierras del rincón,
I look at them como un buey pando,
feeling the dry earth, crunch under
my boots.                     Es Julio, y si sigue asi,
dirán que es sequía.     I pray it is not.
For now, I will do
what we have always done. I will work
like my father él y sus mandados.
En las labores. We will fix a fence,
the barbed wire, cut, retwist, cut,
retwist until a new post is put in place.

Levantamos rostros al ver las nubes,
all gray, completamente llenos de agua,
but it isn’t meant for our hectares.

Quizás mañana mijo.

He looks at me.                       He says,
vente, algo rapidito.                   We go
into the fields. Rows of little milpitas
all around us. I know what we must do.
We must bend over, pull up the weeds,
all the milpitas that are growing wild,
arancalas viejo, my father says. I have canas.
And a belly. But my body remembers.
Esta tierra. This land,               these hileras.
48 hileras to traverse, mano over mano—
pull everything that does not follow the rows.

It takes us over an hour.        We laugh.
I remember the feel               dry earth
in my clutches. The clump of green
entre mis dedos,                    dusting
the roots on the thighs of my pants,
returning soil to soil.
This would have been done in 30 minutes
if I was a kid. I would have earned 5 pesos
                                                and a Pepsi.

Hey, I say, me duele la espalda.
My father laughs                       and says
something about his rodillas. But we do.
We pick the 2 hectáreas clean. We talk
about how much my aunt will make
from this cosecha de elote. Suficiente
para pagarle a alguien más joven
que puede arrancar esta jodida yerba.

Vámonos mijo
                         —que esta yunta ya ni anda.

 

Lupe Mendez is a writer, educator, and activist originally from Galveston, Texas. He is the author of Why I Am Like Tequila, winner of the 2019 Robertson Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. He is published across Texas and beyond. He teaches in Houston and was selected as Texas Poet Laureate for 2022–2023.

[Purchase Issue 26 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

El cuerpo avisa

Related Posts

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.

Anna Malihot and Olena Jenning's headshots

August 2025 Poetry Feature: Anna Malihon, translated by Olena Jennings

ANNA MALIHON
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges

Image of a tomato seedling

Talks with the Besieged: Documentary Poetry from Occupied Ukraine  

ALEX AVERBUCH
Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports