for Mia Zapata (1965–1993)
you could have sang anywhere put the soul back into anything all eyes on you a rewinding tape we wish started with your cabin in the woods an english sheepdog and a jeep not the echoes from a stilled voice what kind of song could you make if we reach for you could we comb out the knots in your hair the bleached roots the unraveling threads of your denim cut offs the seaweed wrapped around your lanky limbs Bessie Smith on a table at a house party blue punk double-jointed heavy angel a field of yellow roses—
This poem includes lines from interviews with Mia’s friends and family.
Camila Valle is a writer, editor, translator, and abortion doula and educator. Her work has appeared in the tiny, Interview, ’68 to ’05, Wendy’s Subway Endless Playlist, Science for the People, and Jewish Currents, among other publications. Her translation of Set Fear on Fire: The Feminist Call that Set the Americas Ablaze by the Chilean feminist performance collective LASTESIS is out now from Verso Books.
Image: “Basement Show (17)” by Alex J. Tunney
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