Alessandra Narvaez-Varela

BIO

Born and raised in Ciudad Juárez, México, with a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso, Alessandra Narvaez-Varela is currently a Creative Writing instructor and a candidate in the Bilingual MFA Creative Writing program at the University of Texas at El Paso. This is her first publication.  

Lord

If the lord of the house is green, she is red
at the hips, because unhinging from the bone, 

the house with an unmarried sister and baby,
a mother who could tell by their walk 

if sex had opened their blessed seam, meant,
not scandal, but surrender to all things—gut 

lungs, instinct. If the lord of the house is green,
she is the blue of the flame: the man lifted 

the blouse with a lace collar up to her belly,
and found, in the flesh asterisk "a perfect well" 

where tongues fit, even if pennies that fall here
do not grant wishes: teenager lips, the selectivity 

of a fly when it comes to food or shit. If the lord
of the house is green, she has always been verde, 

because "verde que te quiero verde," she only did
when she loved a man until he was green or 

saw jalapeños, tomatillos and peas as love-
worthy. But no matter, she is now a La Quinta 

or Super 8 heiress—her back finds an nth degree
of bending, and that odd small toe unfurls 

when the high finally comes, when she is lord-
less or lordful. Maybe the lord of the house 

is too mighty and too busy to stain hearts,
sheets with any color, or maybe, he is no one.

©The Acentos Review 2017