Marcy Rae Henry
i am so easy to seduce
cook for me mamita
(the crispiest chilaquiles
in the barrio—)
fire up that grill papi
(anything without myoglobin)
get the guac just right
no lime no cilantro
i’m yours for the night
my peppermint blood
half red half white
is not a whodunnit
i’ve been a cactus in a pot
leaning towards the sun
until i tip over
i have tipped well
tipped people off
missed teatime
by a few minutes
missed a man the first years
and forgot about him the second
that is the opulence of the mind
where you can reach me
give it your best shot
raise an eyebrow over a glass
tell me about the big red dot
in the center of the canvas
is it a setting zia
stateless classless communist society
tell me it’s the bindi
on a married woman’s forehead
make it easy
make it about us
about passion
fury flurry of sheets
tell me it’s blue
and it’s a square
assign it a number
tell me looking at it won’t
change anything
tell me what to tell you
to tell me about touching
just remember
i’m all mixed up
and you can’t stay here
blocking poetry
but be cool for the night
and i will go away
with no control
over your public image
just sounding off
like a sonnet of bees
on the way out
Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Xicana artist from the Borderlands who studied in Spain, India and Nepal before moving to Chicago. She’s the author of death is a mariachi, winner of the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize and CHIRBy finalist, when to go to the Taj Mahal, the body is where it all begins, dream life of night owls, winner of the Open Country Chapbook Contest, and We Are Primary Colors. Her writing has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, four Pushcart nominations, first prize in Suburbia’s Novel Excerpt Contest and Kaveh Akbar chose her fiction collection as a finalist for the George Garrett Fiction Prize. MRae’s visual work appears in Waxwing, Arkana, The William & Mary Review, Thimble Magazine, and was featured in the 2022 Assisi, Italy International Contemporary Art Exhibition. She’s a digital minimalist with no social media accounts, a senior editor for RHINO, and Professor of English, literature and creative writing at Wilbur Wright College, a Hispanic Serving Institution, where she received Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s 2023-2024 Outstanding Educator Award. marcyraehenry.com