Diana the Huntress by Jessica Helen Lopez

They say the number four bus enjoyed a certain reputation
its tires swaggering down a hilly road pockmarked by sage brush
loose in the axle like a man with too many beers under his belt

the fear exhaled from the women’s nostrils
fueled the trek – a hot mist moist with the tang of terror
bus windows fogged by morning vapor
opaque and rheumy long after the women had vacated their seats

I took a pistol and placed a bullet into the bus driver’s temple
easily I deposited it there
the sun made a wistful track along the soot-covered sky
and the maquilas shut their metal doors against the day
El Paso glittered like a City of Gold from the other side of the border
a muffled silence settled into all of our bones

at the arrival of the next dawn
I took a second bullet
silver as the a single bead from the rosary my mother wore around her neck
pregnant in the womb of the chamber
the bullet spat with quickfire and lodged
into the second man’s brain

again no pity, no sorrow-colored remorse
only the old number four tossed like a tin can
I walked away and did not run from the
dead man bloated and gray faced
is back and arms laced with the scarred
scratches made by the women who had not got away

The newspapers jabbered like angry bees
and the AP wire was alive with the electricity of my name

Diana the Huntress
and I fear no moon, Lady of Wild Creatures
La Cazadora worshipped by the womanly workforce
of Juarez

My sisters are frightened mares

Some might say I will perish in hell with the rest of them
the men – adept at removing women’s faces
removing their breasts like too-soon petals
the milk of their skin, the floating flotsam
peeled beneath the killer’s knife

They like to leave behind bite marks on the buttocks
They like to leave behind dead babies cradled within eviscerated wombs

Decomposed flesh resting inside decomposed flesh

And should I burn in the seventh layer
it is of no consequence to me
place me in hell and I will kill them all again

should my skin peel from my bones
incinerated by the heat of the oldest sin
I will always think it worth it
judge me Creator for I fear no moon

no man
no law
no lawlessness
no rampage

I only ever wanted to fashion birds with these hands
I only ever wanted soft righteousness not a countryside
riddled with the husks of dead raped women

They were like wild mustangs, the dark-eyed girls, cuckolded
shepherded to the slaughter; knees like young colts,
necks bared and naked breasts an offering to the swine

All of their holes raped, looted and left to spoil
the assembly plants are swollen with the limbs of women
the dirt is caked with their blood

Don’t you know
you who wrought me
wrenched me from my terrible anger
dug out from the shell of my sleep with a dirty fingernail
my rebirth whispered
upon the dying lips of women
one last jewel of blood dropped to the floor

reaping
sowing

beseeching
vengeance

one fine golden
and glorious
day?

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Jessica Helen Lopez is the current Poet Laureate of Albuquerque and a long-standing member of the City of Albuquerque Slam Team and the 2008 National Champion Winning UNM Lobo Slam Team. She is a Poetry and Creative Writing Instructor at Robert F. Kennedy Charter High School. In 2014 Swimming With Elephants published her collection of Poems titled, “Cunt. Bomb.” Lopez’s work has been published in UNM Press’s, A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Slam Scene, Chicago Open Mic America Vol I, Feminism Now, Poetic Diversity, and Destructible Heart Press, Albumar Familia. She has been a part of are the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s VOCES: A Writing Institute for Youth, among many other workshops and educational community initiatives.
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