Each year, we use some of our posts to connect with the Poetry Coalition’s annual programming. This year, the theme is It is burning./ It is dreaming./ It is waking up: Poetry & Environmental Justice. (The line “It is burning./ It is dreaming./ It is waking up.” is from the poem “Map” by Linda Hogan.) We are engaging with that theme through a focus on disability and environment. 

If you are reading these poems on a cell phone or small screen, please turn it to the widescreen view for accurate formatting. 

 

Infinite

I text my ancestors for guidance
through these planetary griefs. 
There is no response. 

I go out in public &
cis people tell me I risk my visible self too much. 
But I think I’m just co-existing.

Earth practices liberation.
This is how I’ve led my body.
Naturally, I am bold. 

The weeds spread out.
I blow
the dandelion’s head – good wishes.

When I can, I am gentle
with isolation. 

Between the onlookers
and me
is a distance.

The spine rains. 
My legs meadow hairs. 
I swallow slow. 
My face fires.

A part of me is always missing 
(what I don’t know.)

I want to root my queerness.
Bloom infinite like spring flowers.

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Jimena Lucero is a poet, actor, & cultural worker. Her short film Silver Femme screened at the 59th Ann Arbor Film festival, Outfest Fusion, and Inside Out Film Festival. She was a 2019-2020 Emerge-Surface-Be fellow at the Poetry Project. Her writing appears in Zoeglossia, The Recluse, Nightboat’s Echo, and more. Jimena’s work is rooted in trans liberation, disability justice, and future building.