Poems by Heymy Patiño Martínez

Chronic Back Pain

Emerges when least expected
Like water next to a field, slowed
And dripping, liquid then hardened.

Evaporates when least expected
Like wax next to a furnace, slowed
And dripping, hard then liquified.

Bodily, My Precious Loss

The uniformity of a working day has a braided quality to it
Attaching its demanding strands to the valley between the shoulder blade
Intervals, intermittent: slowly shaping me into its impure accomplice

A sharpened and broken, worn down body
It rattles, it rattles, it rattles
Rusted ligaments no longer assist my plump flesh
Stuffing stiff pockets with crisp, hard-edged, hard-earned dollars
And suddenly, I recall my youth of four twenty-five cent coins
Inside small, disintegrating pockets only held together by motherly love
The desperate stitches, criss-crossing and knotting to prevent precious loss

The impossibility of breaking generational curses and its grinding grievances
I became what I never wanted, what my ancestral bloodline feared most
Corporate obedience intertwined with my corporal nerve endings

The body too busy gathering capital, stern like rope
And that sinister lifelong curse, seamless like cursive 
It binds, it binds, it binds

 About Words

Can’t help but thank the words
Yes, they separate but I’m thinking of

Times they tethered, with demanding grit
A group of peoples once threatened to go extinct 

Despite their form when laced with anger
Yes, they’ll later separate and reorganize

Once again, tethered with demanding grit
Here, to form a potent apology

About the Poet:
Heymy Patiño Martínez is a writer and educator based in Chicago. Currently, she is an undergraduate student at The University of Illinois at Chicago.