La Llorona (The Crying Woman)

Who is that woman
dragging herself
throughout the city
well after midnight?

The closer she gets
the woman is
not what she appears.
She is a shadow.

Her head is a cloud.
Her feet are roots
of a diseased tree;
her hands, gnarled branches.

As she touches you,
she feels like sand,
like sawdust, and her
horse laugh terrifies.

She is not human.
She is all fog
and dew. She weeps and
hollers by the creek.

Born in Mexico, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His first poetry book, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. Kendra Steiner Editions out of Austin, Texas, has published 7 of his chapbooks, including his latest offering, Make the Light Mine.