SandScript 2020

“Do everything in the eyes of God and teach your daughter the same.”
She says it slowly with the strain of our ancestry hanging heavily on each word.
It’s mesmeric and her voice sounds like mine,
except it’s deeper and filled with all the whimsy of a timeless soul.
Her voice carries the weight of her mother.
POETRY
We speak in the tongues of our predecessors.
Their stories are preserved in old fables and the
masa that gets stuck between our fingers while we roll tamales in the afternoon.
My mother’s voice has borne every truth.
One day, in a voice that is deeper and filled with all the whimsy of a timeless soul,
I will take my place in the middle of the stage.
While my daughter faces the fluidity of her world, foregoing the rosary,
opting instead for the clarity of herb and Whitman, I will appear to her and say,
“Do everything the god within your veins deems holy and teach your daughter the same.”
It will be in the tongue of my mother bearing the weight of her mother.
We the women of the church, we the women of brujería,
speak through our children as if they are limp, empty poppets.
It is the psalm of our ghosts.
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