11.3.06

Ode to Carolina
(my favorite maid of color, may she rest in peace with the fish and the Indians)

She hung never-opened dolls on walls
over a yellow B & W
and every Tuesday, each Friday
she walked off bare concrete for
two dollars of her life. Her man
a mesqual lover on short pay
from the shafts where he loaded
car to car like all the other
Mexicans, all the other brothers
and my father, all of our people.
Manuel knew only the language
of the Warren speak-easies, aqui?
Aqui? Put it here, a shovel and
lower the dynamite, borracho
en la manana, en el noche,
in the Lowell Waiting Room.
Carolina jabbered twice a week
over flat warmbread and between the sheets
and sky out back saying under our beds,
Manuel borracho tambien, to my mother
and my mother, tambien to her.
The Sonora so full of surprises, we
hounded her with toy snakes
from Ben Franklin's, me and John
chased her around mi casa,
all her hands in flour
and mother on our tail.
We'd beg for all forgivenesses.
Carolina'd open like a doll in the closet
and her 'tillas tasted good.
I liked butter and sugar,
John liked them raw. He used to say,
'tilla momma 'tilla.

1 comment:

AZnurse said...

And this one made me cry