Yanaguana volume 1, issue 2 spring/summer 2026 a literary journal from San Antonio, Texas
ire'ne lara silva
“i heard the earth laughing heard its delight”
“ mostly muscle
it runs on flame”
“from her i learned to watch the moon.”
a street named Soledad
i should have always lived in a city with a street named Soledad i should have always lived in a city with a street named Refugio in another time or in another place i might have been named Soledad i might have been named Refugio or maybe i should have always lived in a city with a street named Relampago
i might have been named Relampago i might have been named Viento there are women in my family named Clemencia and Concepción but none named Socorro i wouldn’t have wanted to be named Socorro i would have wanted Sirocco Mistral Huracán Shamal Tehuantepecer anything that meant Wind anything that meant Storm anything that meant Uncertainty
not Lluvia not Rocío not Llovisna nothing so soft so gentle maybe Aguacero maybe Tormenta i would have loved Relampago but how could anyone have known my true name at my birth and wouldn’t have any mother shuddered at the thought of the life a Relampago would live never obedient too willing to fight a lightning rod for trouble too too bright
i love this city with its streets named Soledad and Refugio Calaveras and Chupaderas i love its colors and its roads and its music but Relampagos have no true home how much trouble it would have saved me to know that sooner Relampagos lose what true family they have Relampagos want what they want with ferocity and what they want no one else understands
my true home has no walls my true home is the sky and all the places where there are no roads my true home has always been solitude i have always belonged to the wind i have always belonged to the ocean to the desert to the long day and the long night and the howling of coyotes i should have always lived in a city with a street named Soledad
first memory of my mother
my older brother brought her a rabbit, dazed but still alive. within seconds, she had snapped its
neck and was skinning it. no time for its flesh to cool before she had disemboweled the animal,
popped its joints, cut it into parts, and had it frying in the pan. she made red chile mole and flour
tortillas. i was five. i refused to eat.
how odd that this morning, 25 years after her passing, i would think of all the things i didn't learn
from her. from her i learned east west north and south. from her i learned to tell the direction of
the wind. from her i learned the signs of oncoming storms. from her i learned to watch the moon.
now i understand she taught me to never close my eyes, to listen, to listen, to pay attention
because life was a fragile thing.
she taught me caution because my dark skin told some people i was prey. taught me that my sex
told some people i was prey. taught me that being poor told some people i was prey. one night
when i was 19, i was walking alone at night in a cemetery, full of peace and following the moon.
i heard the drunken shouts and cheers of many many frat boys. every instinct i had told me to
find dark shadows and leafy cover. i heard my mother’s voice: don’t move. be quiet. breathe
slow. and in that moment, i was prey turned predator. not a predator hunting meat. a predator
hunting her own survival.
my whole childhood everyone said the only thing i’d inherited from my mother was the darkness
of her skin. not her eyes. not her hair. not her silence. not her long limbed grace. and i was
relieved. i didn’t want her obedience. didn’t want her resignation. i was fiercely glad i lacked her
ability to suffer abuse and insult in silence. i didn’t want to learn endurance. but in the end, she
did teach me how to endure. taught me how to stretch a dollar in impossible ways. how beans
and corn and salt and prayers were all i needed to survive.
this morning i am wondering, in another time and another place, what else would my mother
have taught me? would she have taught me how to track animals in the wild? to wring their
necks? to move swiftly with a knife? what would i have learned to disembowel? nowadays,
people think only fathers teach their sons how to kill. we’ve forgotten that mothers used to teach
their daughters how to hunt. how to put meat on the table. how to not waste even the blood that
spilled.
hoguera
my heart was never
only muscle
not even
mostly muscle
it runs on flame
is made of flame
my end will be a conflagration
my end the day
i finally burn
too hot
i imagine it will be a glory
all sparks and blue flame
and but not
destruction
not at all
only flame revealed
all the fire
that has always
been burning underneath
laid bare
this is not a phoenix story
this is a sugarcane story
no rebirthings
only revelations
all my life has been a bonfire
entrañas
i do as my gods bid they do not command i do not obey but i listen to what my entrañas say
and what are my entrañas but the godvoice that lives inside my body deeper than my flesh my
gods are a flame my gods are the petals of a sunflower my gods are a translucence of skin
i heard the earth laughing heard its delight as it made the roads ripple made pipes burst snapped
power lines made the tiny people scream in fright made the tiny people run i felt the drunken joy
of the earth as it shook itself free and reclaimed its face reclaimed its ability to gaze at the sky
they told me no one prays to the gods of hurricanes anymore no one prays to the gods of wind
anymore that isn’t what souls are for but everyone is afraid of change and i am terrified of things staying the same and the godvoice whispers death is the only thing that never changes
so much
to weep for so much to pray for so much
to strive for so much to work for so much
to suffer over so much to have to accept
so much to endure so much to worry over
and so much to rage over
and the days are no longer no shorter no
matter what we do somewhere the numbers
are already recorded the number of breaths
we have been granted and how many
times our hearts will beat
for how long will it be remembered how
fiercely i loved how fiercely i protected what
i loved though there is grace in knowing
that the memory of my failures my flaws my
moments of cowardice will also fade
living has been a whirlwind a dust devil
a cyclone living has been so much i wept and
bled until i wept blood and bled tears and what
was it all for in the end to say this is what i
won and this is what i lost
one and never one and always one and never and
always struggling and in the end wasn’t it always
one prayer my whole life one prayer I know better
now, my friend said, It’s only god, the wind,
the sun, and the stillness.
ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, which won the 2025 ILBA Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award, a comic book, VENDAVAL, and two short story collections, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán, and the light of your body. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2025 Rising Star Poetry Award, a 2025 Storyknife Writers Residency, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction, a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award.
Discover more ire’ne lara silva here.