- Olivia Brooks
- Oct 27
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 30
Liza Soberanification
Over corporate pizza / a coworker comes up to me / fever-eyed / mouthing a
startup idea for an aesthetic clinic: / come in wholly yourself / come out with
your DNA un-ribboned / half-mutt / half-white / Call it Liza Soberan-ify /
Changed from the song of your toes / to the grain of your tastebuds / hankering
for salt of a different sea / I confess I did not stop her / Most days I’m taxed by
the heft / of that potential / near-bursting like a bad grape / I suppose I do have
affection / for what doesn’t grow / here: Edamame / Men with thick lion-beards
/ Women with hooks / for noses / bodacious bell peppers / Big movie-screen
pleasure /Tinsel and razzle / At the games Dad gushed rapturous / & prayerful /
each time an import was on the lineup / The Threeee! un-barbing his throat /
un-bloodying our hands / into a lineage where we were mostly left alone / Small
and brown as we were / how lucky / to be found by the Spanish first / instead of
the Japs / because now we have St. Roch Patron Saint of dogs / &
bone-whittling arthritis / Knees split on monggo beans / I learned from Ma my
first lesson: / the body is worth what it can endure / Here is a growing list: / (1)
my laugh / a knife flung in the air / everyone taking cover / (2) The
shapeshifting chair of my hips / for the woodworker had someone / daintier in
mind / (3) My lamb-throat leaking / when the Korean boy fingered the bristle /
of my pelt / said you know our maid’s Filipina too / his mouth a stun gun / both
of us pretended / we couldn’t smell my hair / burning / & I know / I know /
Everyone on Earth yearns for the good life / I suppose I would not hate it / to
find a chair molded for my body / to be the voice in the slaughterhouse / going
shhh / you’re okay / My coworker brainstorms / Or Liza Soberanification? / I
shrug / already at the bartering room / you always looked like someone who
doesn’t have strong opinions / this offended me at first / then I remembered /
how last night a woman held me down / asked rough or sweet? / how my body /
plain and without practice / knew what to do / already going slack / a window
opened halfway / to let some storm in
ANDY LOPEZ (she/they) lives and writes in the Philippines. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of The Net and published in The Adroit Journal, Split Lip Magazine, The Best Small Fictions, The Offing, and other magazines and anthologies. Find her everywhere at @andylopezwrites.