Cover and
Copyright Page

Marisol,
Iguana Woman

Man of Steel

Todos Colgados

Fridays
at Western Union

Grave Revelation

Celulistas

Cubreviento

Preludio
a Nezahualcoyotl

Sometimes
They Can Read Lips

Already She Knows

Marisol, Iguana Woman

Awash with green and cinnamon 
iguana night 
The moon outside my window grows legs
clouds the night with violet air 
I lie on my back and it rains jasmine vines 
From the window
This small room awake with the night 
Stirs me 
The moon swings in on the lowest branch 
She Calls me her iguana girl
Points her jade finger to me 
Pulls out the small lizard in my eyes, changes me 
A small current runs past the old door frame in my mind 
Swiftly circles to the light in my elbows 
a cool melon scent rises 
From my green lips 
Escapes in muffled lizard talk 
And I call out my jungle
A frothing sliver of moon power 
An echo of the old me with skin and hair 
Stretches to a distant star 
Come inside of my ear I call 
Come slither passed the curled leaves 
	and trumpets of my lobes
To my magnificent long tail of thorns honey 
	greened by full moon 
Cramp into my crescent moon smile greet the moon lady 
she dangles on the tiny gold leaf of my tail 
come stay and swallow each of my summer wind food
Gypsy mangos
Rosemary
Wild iguana cantaloupe
Moon lady stays one yellow twilight 
looses her voice catches a dragon fly up to her sky
black and cold without her 
she leaves my scales 
and the roughened sound of marbles that break in my voice
gives me my last supper of tea leaves and melancholy
she kisses my iguana lips, invites me to the sky 
but leaves me in the bed I dream so well in
leaves me to the cool night ahead and to my wakened state 	of dream 
Still iguana 
Still woman
The last of my jungle sways 
moistly in the webs of my soul 
I enter tomorrow linked to every part of the wild in me
Every green scale seeping into the world I live in.

                               —by Marisol Baca