Claudia D. Hernandez


THE RIVER NEVER HAPPENED TO US  (ii.)



We  walked  more  than  a  thousand miles to get to the other side of
the Rio Bravo, guided by the Coyote’s howl. We  didn’t  bathe in the
                                                                                                                            river.
Instead,  we  floated  like  thin  paper  boats,  tanned   by   the    sun.
I    don’t    remember    caressing    the    surface    of    any    pumice
                                                                                                                            rock.
I     stuck     my     fingers    between    cottonwood    crevices,    their
trunks    rooted    on    opposite    sides    of    the    river.   We   were
                                                                                                                         bound
to   eat   desert    wind;   I  was   ten.  When   we  reached   the  other
side,   we   hid   behind   bushes;   quietly,   we   sank   slowly  in  the
                                                                                                                            mud.
When the  Coyotes  signaled,  we walked,  no,  we ran and  our knees
shed broken pieces of mud. No one drowned in the river; no one had
                                                                                                                            to be
resuscitated    from    the    mud.    Yet    we    continued    to   trickle
shards    of    mud,    as    if    the  river    had   never   happen   to  us.

CLAUDIA D. HERNANDEZ

was born and raised in Guatemala. She crossed the Rio Bravo / Rio Grande with her mother and two older sisters when she was ten years old. She’s a photographer, poet, translator, and a bilingual educator residing in Los Angeles. She writes short stories, children’s stories, and poetry in Spanish, English, and sometimes weaves in Poqomchiʼ, an indigenous language of her Mayan heritage. Claudia holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her poems have appeared recently in Texas Poetry Calendar, Third Woman Press, The Acentos Review, Mom Egg Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is the founder of the ongoing project Today's Revolutionary Women of Color.