Conchita Speaking

Her stream of words
joins the cadence of her hands
speaking their tight and snappy gestures
in front of her ferocious body.
On and on the language,
the rivers of her stories.

Nine decades to tell,
She is as full of her Triqui culture’s view
as you are of yours, and I of mine.
Understanding not a word of Triqui
I incline my ear to her truculent pulse,
her rhythmic patrol for foes.

Pouring like endurance, her words.
She tells the loss of her youngest,
(I know when she points to the sky)
Angel, who was murdered when he was 28.
She asks in Spanish if I understand.
I tell her no, she shakes her head in pity.

And then we’re off again.
as if we are parts of one body,
a mouth and an ear. And aren’t we?
We share tamales and atole
that I have carried on the bus
all the way from the market.

The nursing home is far away
from where my Mayan friend
reigned on the throne of the curb,
greeting villagers passing by.
Now she’s locked in residential care,
the sovereign Maya in a system of rules.

How is she? they ask me in the village.
Her wounds are healed, her clothes are clean,
she sleeps in a bed, meals appear, she’s safe.
And they’ve taken her indigenous clothes,
the traje that tells her who she is,
because she fought their removal for bathing.

To be clear, those arms
that worked a backstrap loom for decades,
pack a wallop, and she delivered
righteous blows to staff assigned to bathing.
To be clear, she’s experienced theft all her life.
Now her traje is hidden away.

How is she? I wonder too.
I visit and listen and wonder.
Her Triqui flows like a river.
And her hands, her hands are speaking
things I almost understand, silent things
that arrow straight into my heart.

            ©Susa Silvermarie 2025