Maldición

Curse the candle dripping till dawn 
& the little stone Virgen,
her dress of blood-red folds.

Down streets, the long yellow petal 
of school bus swallows
its daily fill. It idles in the silver lot,

mouth flung open. Curse the lurking 
SUVs, the sunglasses & padded chests. 
Curse these small, zip-tied hands.

A headshot of Rachel

Rachel Aguirre is a poet and Spanish teacher from San Antonio, Texas. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Passages North, On the Seawall, The Summerset Review, Puerto del Sol, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and she is currently associate editor for fws: journal of literature & art.