When Someone Sees You

How can you bow to your hurt
and go on?

She hunched on the sidewalk
tears sliding down her face.
She leaned back, then,
against the wall of a house.
The street was vacant,
until a Mexican man
walked by her on the sidewalk.
She turned her face away.
But he noticed something

and returned
to see if the gringa elder was ok.
She could only shake her head.
He fumbled for some English words
and added gestures
to ask if she had eaten,
or if she needed water.
She could only
point to her heart.

Ah, he said.
But for that,
you have the medicina.
You have the medicine
inside you, he said.
She was curled small,
pulled into herself,
But when he said that,
she looked up at his face.

She saw him.
Young, a trimmed beard,
old eyes.
He stood in front of her,
politely
looking off to the side,
Last year I stayed in the house
alone
for many days, he said.

Wanting no talk, hardly any food.
It changed then.
Time changed it.
She wanted him to leave.
She wanted him to stay.
His kind face expected nothing,
which made her cry more freely.
You will see, he said.
It was him seeing her

that changed it.
Then he walked slowly away,
saying he had to go to work.
Soon, she was able to rise
and walk back up the hill
to where the pain waited.
She had to face it.
She couldn’t go home,
not yet.

When someone
rests their eyes on you,
when you think
you don’t want to be seen –
and someone sees you,
you can let yourself
be, let sorrow be.
When someone sees you,
Sometimes

you can bow to your hurt,
and go on.

©Susa Silvermarie 2022