Siguanaba Taxonomy, by Leticia Hernández-Linares
Domain [Reina] Siguanaba, girl with spirit
Domain [Eukary] Queen with nucleus
Spirited girl bares a particular
kind of a center: birds in her
abdomen, feathers piercing her skin to fly.
Kingdom [Kuzkatan] A people multicellular, alighted
Kingdom [Animales] Are we all related?
A village of Illuminated river fish, an empire
of birds––relatives, no noose, no duty.
Before famulus :: a dungeon.
Genus [Sigua :: Girl] Servant of the father, of the famulus
Genus [Naba] Spirited girls in the mud, too animal
Spikes on the spinal cord & relegated
to rivers rushing reprimands downstream,
tresses tangled against the witness of rocks.
Family [Daughters] + Sons, the prize
Family [Sons] - Daughters, the consolation
When daughter roams, her head goes skull, her breasts
turn anchor, her singing mouth a screech, horse ghost,
bearing no flower, no desert backdrop,
the artist’s brush silent.
Order [Primate ]: But what of her heightened vision?
Order [Backbone]: Her arms may grow too long
Animalia meant to soar, saddled. Roaming girl,
broken. Girl adapts to the arboreal, climbs
the trees, in her nature, but it isn’t natural.
Phylum [Chordata ]: Cords circling her neck
Phylum [Nervous]: The nerve of her, says the mother
But when the waterfall rebels against a rain god
who punishes spirited currents :: a girl, the sun refuses
to set on the dorsal chord of the horizon––a rebuke
of classification.
& the river cleanses us of the Class :: Mamones,
overflows to free us of the Species :: Princesa.
& the girl :: horse, & the water :: home
& the night sky :: blanket & the mud :: dress
& the skull :: mask & the eruption :: a girl’s
howl y La Siguanaba :: our North Star.
*Siguanaba, which means “woman” and “spirit” in Nahuatl, is a mythical character in Salvadoran and Central American folklore. Essentially, spirited girls who don’t want to mother or marry are bad, scary, and monstrous and should be punished and heeded as a cautionary lesson.
Leticia Hernández-Linares is an interdisciplinary, bilingual writer, artist, & racial justice educator. She is the author of Mucha Muchacha, Too Much Girl & Alejandria Fights Back! ¡La lucha de Alejandria! Widely published, she is the co-editor of The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and her work appears in anthologies such as Maestrapeace, San Francisco’s Monumental Feminist Mural & Other Musics: New Latina Poetry. She has lived, created, and protested in the Mission District for over two decades. A five-time San Francisco Arts Commission grantee, she teaches in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.