Saint Julian Press

Leslie Contreras Schwartz ~ Poet

CENOTE 

At 13, the lightness of her limbs as she lets herself
fall bodiless
 
onto the trampoline, the counter slap
of leap into the air. The open palm of her own
strength, the back-handed
 
swing of a girl against the ball
of the closed world.
 
Her childhood
in that effort to perfect the underwater headstand,
legs like a V pointing at the sky as her eyes
 
blink wide open, taking in that hushed and sacred
bottom.
 
Now brown girl at a bus stop, all she owns
in a broken-zipper backpack—one t-shirt, a pair of jeans,
two socks, a size A bra and a notebook—her question
 
hitched on one hip. Lamplight dimmed by the spreading
  oaks'
limbs, as he asks her to go with him. When she says yes
 
yes, he rests his hand on her small shoulder,
his fingers folding over like a cup.
Later, the next man,
 
and the next, and the next.
Hundreds of men beaten
 
into one. One by one and her slow
smile, one that hoards
 
its swimming girl
 
becoming thousands
of Maya virgins
 
being flung into
a cenote. Underwater,
consorting with the gods
 
to desecrate their own village.
Meanwhile, the nightstand
by the mattress,
 
its discarded picture of a pair
of children with dark night in their hair and eyes,
 
on a mother’s lap. Their twinned joy
as they stare next to
 
a pile of condoms, needles, and mace,
a man’s wallet.
 
To the bottom
she goes, sea in a little jewelry
box of hell.