Poetry / Eduardo Martínez — Leyva
::After The Shooting, You Have A Panic Attack In The Supermarket::
On a Saturday morning, you drive across Francis Scott Key Bridge, mindful of cyclists and joggers; the tourists blocking the sun from their eyes to catch a glimpse of the imperious monument looming over everyone. Another stone God they’ve come to worship. But you’re here because you’re hungry. Stuff your cart with spreads and fancy cheeses that in another life, you could never afford, walk through the shiny, polished aisles, greeting others with a nod or short, quick smirk. You feel warmth around your eyes. Open the carton of eggs to examine each one. Looking for cracks, checking the expiration dates. When all of a sudden, you think, was this how it was? Was this how it happened? A moment so boring, you’re already thinking of the next boring moment, and the one after that. Is this it? Lifting and tapping a cantaloupe, looking for black, welting spots on an heirloom tomato, thinking of the week’s lunch or lesson you haven’t yet planned. Picturing your students on Monday morning, staring into the white board’s clean, blank face. Waiting. Remembering all those times you hushed their panic during lockdown drills, as you shoved your heads underneath tables and desks. You thought yourself ready. Is it? This? Funny how life happens, no, funny how life needs death for it to happen, be compared to. Valued. But you knew this already. Coming in from the parking lot, barely missing that red light. You knew. Just as elsewhere, someone is slipping their feet into a new pair of shoes, while parents set the table for breakfast, sisters get ready to sell raffle tickets, And brothers forget to heave their hearts to their throats before getting into their cars, rushing for a carton of milk they meant to buy earlier that week. They knew too. You hope. Every one of them.
:: What’s Above Us Is Either Dead Or Still Dying ::
Suddenly there’s the urge to ruin every garden I see, uproot every goddamn flower until my hands are the throbbing red that traumatizes most people. It’s no longer hunting season, which means I can roam freely with the others, if they’ll have me. They won’t. To live through the breakdown, one must first understand the thing that breaks is always breaking, quietly. As such, I try to go unnoticed, swept all the rooms I’d been in before exiting. Leaving behind a certain kind of warmth in cushions and furniture, unique to those types of animals that know of no master’s touch. And I think of myself lucky having survived all these years calming my own blood down whenever it felt loud and unbearable, and I was alone. Have been alone and will be. By this time of night, the foragers have crept back to their rooms, sleeping off the afternoon’s chores, leaning into their loved ones, leaning into their very own flesh, the art they get to live in. Clean and honest. It is quiet enough for me to see myself as something other than tragic. More than an itch on the palm’s open surface. As vast and with purpose as the sky above, silently spreading itself over my little, borrowed room.
From the writer
:: Account ::
These two poems appear in my debut collection, Cowboy Park, which won the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press. Coping with grief and trauma is one common theme throughout the book.
In 2019, my mom survived a mass shooting at a Walmart in my hometown of El Paso, TX. Since then, I’ve been capturing the aftermath and the emotions that haunt her and ripple through our family. Initially, I was paralyzed by fear, hesitant to write about the event and the survivor’s guilt that gripped our family. The poem—“After the Shooting, You Have a Panic Attack in the Supermarket”—reflects on those weeks when I had to persevere despite battling panic attacks, sleepless nights, and an inability even to name the trauma we endured. I am still on this journey, writing toward understanding and solace, even after all these years.
I penned “What’s Above Us Is Either Dead or Still Dying” when I returned to poetry after a long hiatus. Living in Provincetown during the off-season, surrounded by fellow creatives, I immersed myself in writing without distractions. It was a time of profound self-reflection, growth, and healing. I embraced failure, shed my fears, and learned to sit with my grief. Most importantly, I learned to be kind to my words and, ultimately, to be kind to myself.
Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Boston Review, The Journal, Frontier Poetry, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He’s received fellowships from CantoMundo, The Frost Place, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Lambda Literary Foundation, and a teaching fellowship from Columbia University, where he earned his MFA. His debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, was selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson as the winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming in November 2024 from The University of Wisconsin Press.