Claudia D. Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She’s a photographer, poet, translator, and a bilingual educator residing in Los Angeles.

Plum Tree

• I devour,
• You gnaw

• I stomp,
• You glide

• I howl,
• You whisper

• I fight
• You embrace

• I close,
• You open

• I dream,
• You exist

• I tear,
• You reconcile

• I war,
• You peace

• I denounce,
• You silence

• I never,
• You always

• I inhale,
• You exhale

• I plum,
• You tree

• I,
• You.

For Lease: 2016.

• The imitation of Grey Goose.
• The scattered books on the floor.
• The blueberry edible.
• The black empty chair.

• Three poets dead.

• The rectangular red carpet.
• The blue sofa with distant flowers.
• Your pink backpack.
• Unwanted, empty frames.

• I’m not alone, Solitude.

It’s been a while since I heard your last song

• Ya no cantes tu canto desde tu jaula
• cenzontle

• libérate

• Do not sing your song
• from a cage

• Bellow your 400 poems from
• the distance of your silenced home:
• yes, your feathers have bones.

• Reinvent your wings —
• spread them out.
• You are not a flightless bird.

• Forget the branch of the weeping
• willow. Venture out to
• palos verdes and sugar pines.

• But build your nest here,
• on the branches
• of my ceiba tree.

• Ya no cantes tu canto desde tu jaula
• cenzontle
• libérate

• Do not sing your song
• from a cage.

Claudia D. Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She’s a photographer, poet, translator, and a bilingual educator residing in Los Angeles. Claudia holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her most recent poems have been published in Texas Poetry Calendar, Third Woman Press, The Acentos Review, Mom Egg Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Southern Humanities Review, Basta!:100 Latinas Against Gender Violence, among others. She is the founder of the ongoing project named Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color.