BY ANDREA BELTRAN
CURATED BY RUBEN QUESADA
In Yoga Class
In wide-legged standing forward bend,
my head almost touching the floor, I can see
my therapist behind me. Yesterday,
I was telling her about my husband’s infertility
and how I was finally feeling at peace
with the possibility of remaining childless,
and she was telling me denial’s a garden of resplendent
but poisonous flowers. Today, I marvel at her legs, pillars
of flexibility. The angles of her ankles,
her sense of control. I watch as she lowers her head to the ground—
touch it hold it—then a sound like a marble smacking the window—
a hamstring snap—and she staggers, grabs for the wall.
My therapist’s unwound, admitting out loud that she did it
to herself, assuring the instructor that she’s the only one to blame,
that she needed to get her head out of her ass before trying to get it
onto the floor, and yes, the mind is a powerful thing, so she doesn’t want us to worry
about her or the bulge blooming on the back of her leg because she’ll be better
by morning. For relaxation, our instructor walks us through a garden. Once
meditation’s over, I sit up, but my therapist remains in corpse pose, smelling the roses.
I inhale, exhale, and repeat Namasté.
Editor's Note: This was featured previously on our old site.
Andrea Beltran is a poet and graduate student from El Paso, Texas. She’s also the Project Director for ForWord, a BorderSenses community project for teens that strives to connect, inspire, and evolve ideas about writing. Her poems have recently appeared in Word Riot, Mom Egg Review, Superstition Review, and Acentos Review.
Ruben Quesada is the author of Next Extinct Mammal and Luis Cernuda: Exiled from the Throne of Night. He is Poetry Editor for Cobalt Review, Codex Journal and The Cossack Review. His writing has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, The Rumpus, and Superstition Review. He teaches English and creative writing for the performing arts at Eastern Illinois University. Follow him on Twitter @rubenquesada.