Because There Is No Return
Poetry | Soft cover | 69 pages
Diana Anhalt’s newest collection, BECAUSE THERE IS NO RETURN, is the reminiscence of her life in Mexico after fleeing the U.S. with her parents during the McCarthy Era. After nearly sixty years Diana returned to the US, only to find that it was no longer her home. She has since cataloged the things you can’t take back in a carry- on—the bougainvillea, taxicab rosaries, wet season rainbows—and laments them all here. Consequently, her poetry surrenders to the seductress that is nostalgia, porque nunca hay retorno: because there is no return.
Diana Anhalt’s poetry has appeared in a wide variety of publications including Nimrod Journal, The Atlanta Review, Sow’s Ear, and Comstock Review. Her essays, short stories and book reviews have been published in both English and Spanish. She is the author of three chapbooks, Shiny Objects (Estampa Artes Graficas), Second Skin (Future Cycle Press) and Lives of Straw (Finishing Line Press), and two books, A Gathering of Fugitives (Archer Books) and BECAUSE THERE IS NO RETURN (Passager Books, 2015). In 2010, Diana returned to the US after almost sixty years as a resident in Mexico, to be closer to her family. She now resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
“These fervid and lush poems hover between an expat life and sometimes a life close to exile––geographical as well as emotional. Therein lies the longing for, and the joy of, return. And then, too, the loss in returning. This is a powerful and unique collection . . .”
Thomas Lux
mother of lopsided logic, defensive driving, the shrug, arrived on my doorstep
when I was eight and entered, trumpets blasting, rolling her R’s.
She flashed a finger, danced a zapateo down my spine.
She had clouds in her pocket, mint on her breath, thunder in her bosom
and a tongue to fold around words like buitzilopochtli. For me,
she dressed in fuchsia, wore jacarandas in her hair. Let me
wrap you in my silk-fringed rebozo, she crooned. You will be mine.
She blew on the dice, tossed them once and taught me to jaywalk
through life under the eye of her blood-giddy sun.
So I shrugged off the Bronx like yesterday’s vows, forgot the words
to Girl Scout songs, fear of dark places under the El,
but kept my ice skates, my accent, the scars on my knees.
She filled my ears with marimbas and gossip, sang me her tunes
until I called her my own: Let me home in the marrow of your bones,
porque nunca hay retorno.
— “Mexico”
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