Winner
2025 Arthur Axlerod Memorial Award
Migration
​​​
Home is Nuevo León, where the monarchs bask in the Southern sun.
Gunfire smoked them out
​
East, across the
Rio Grande; towards the dawn of
promise.
But the Western dream, I fear, was a mirage; dangled
on a
​
precipice.
​
​
I fear I will lose my baby to the North.
The glacial wind split her lips-
​
​
where the sun once kissed
​
She cracks and
​
bleeds.
APRIL TAMEZ is
a 25 year old
English major who was born and raised
in McAllen, TX.
She draws inspiration
from her life
as a first-generation Mexican daughter
to forge creative pieces
of poetry and fiction
that can be appreciated
by others who share
her experiences.
In her spare time,
she likes to crochet,
read, and play
video games.
Metamorphosis
​
I was born
with an ache in
my stomach.
It squirms and
snarls at the sight
of lush green paper.
Paper, I can’t touch.
I eat and
eat
the scraps- still I’m
so hungry,
hungry for the things I
can’t have.
​
​
I bide my time
in my polyester cocoon.
The pain and
gnawing satiates
my hunger.
I eat and
devour
reanimated by petulance, until
I am consumed.
​
​
I miss the
drive, the need
to live. Hunger is now
a phantom of youth.
I fly and
soar
above my grief
directionless yet
straight into
the mouth of a
swooping
hawk.
Lenguas en Peligro
​
​
There was a time
when your words
wrapped around me
tightly, tucking me in.
​
​
I clung to the edge
of your story- the one about
La Llorona
remember?
​
​
You’d say she roamed in the dead of
night, searching for girls
moaning-
‘Ay… mis hijos’
You’d insist it was her
outside
wailing and scratching the
door, down the hall.
​
​
Is it morbid to miss
those nights?
​
Twenty years older,
I still recount
your awful fables. I miss
listening to you- listening
to the language I
once believed was the language
of the world.
​
​
The language I
lost
figure by figure, I can feel it
ebbing away.
​
​
Please,
won’t you tell me
a story? The one about
the insatiable caterpillar
who eats and
eats
before I forget
how to talk to you
mami?