On the eve of the sixth day of Creation,
When God made Adán and Eva,
He made him into a man
But He gave her special powers.
The gift of beauty,
Breasts that swayed
Defiant of all His laws
As they floated parallel to her heart,
Perpendicular to earth’s spirit.
He placed in her body the womb
He possessed in His voice—
Womb, the noun and the Verb—
Like Him, she too possessed
The ability create life in her own image.
Other women that would have
Dominion over man and God
Also came from her:
Mary, the mother of Jesus,
Who would later appear
To el indio Juan Diego as La Guadalupana;
And Mary, the most beloved of Jesus’s disciples—
Known as La Magdalena—
Who conceived His children
By the Holy Spirit
She preached with her life.
In the beginning,
God created all things;
He made them man and woman
Man and woman He made them,
Or so He— in His infinite eloquence— thought.
After He created Eva,
God lost the ability to create,
Grew tired and rested:
He created nothing else, no one else.
She became the mother
Of all the living, the dead, and the unborn.
He didn’t make them
Man and woman:
He made Adán human,
But her—
He made Her a Goddess.
-Jose Oseguera
Jose Oseguera is an LA-based writer of poetry, short fiction and literary nonfiction. Having grown up in a primarily immigrant, urban environment, Jose has always been interested in the people and places around him, and the stories that each of these has to share. He seeks to write about the accounts in marginalized people’s lives that often go untold and the beauty in the urban landscapes that goes overseen. His writing has been featured in Meat for Tea, Sky Island Journal, The Esthetic Apostle, The McNeese Review, and The Main Street Rag. His work has also been nominated for the “Best of the Net” award and the “Pushcart Prize.”