‘Imagine the Angels of Bread’
— Nix Thérèse
Espada’s deft use of repetition really drew & kept me in this poem. The marker of “this is the year” throughout challenges us. Consider how those evicted are given little time to get out, so many of those can happen within this slot. We can also run through many incidents of police violence. But then we have to consider the slower processes of refugees being cleared to come to our country, and what it would mean to be deported after all that work. Or the ancestors being brought out of their respective places in the universe to receive some sort of justice and clarity. Time here is a fluid concept that creates tension by keeping us ungrounded. All of these zooms-past and slowdowns rub against each other to create this space that’s both bursting with hustle and savoring.
I return to this statement often: “If every rebellion begins with the idea / that conquerors on horseback / are not many-legged gods, that they too drown / when plunged into the river / then this is the year.” The conquerors become slightly monstrous in their elevation because they have a capacity for self-preservation that others don’t. But we realize how fragile they also are when stripped of their resources and falling into danger. Rebellion then is the leveling, dropping those who have forgotten the water’s pull because of their height. This section also complicates our sense of action because we’re forced to reckon with how these moments of redemption have arrived. We’re finally given the ideology that precedes this disruption of The World As Usual™.
This poem also has one of my favorite endings of all time: “may every humiliated mouth, / teeth like desecrated headstones, / fill with the angels of bread.” For these mouths that constantly carry death, feeling heaven-adjacent must be somewhat foreign. To have angels appear with a life-giving remedy could change their life trajectory. This sense of upheaval permeates the entire poem, but feels most grounded here. While the confidence of the voice is compelling, it finally bends toward prayer. It finally blesses those it’s been fighting for all along. If we see the first few stanzas as a return of agency, this feels like the call to action. Achieving greatness requires being fed and strengthened. Let’s hope the angels come soon.