Happy International Women’s Day 2021 ❤️
trevor’s dictionary of lost words
She took out her key and opened the door to her apartment.
It was one room.
There was a holey sofa that pulled out into a bed with a small table and a lamp beside it. Three books were on a bookshelf that was made out of a cut board and two concrete blocks. An ancient transistor radio was in the corner.
A painting by Jasper Johns of three American Flags, one on top of the other, smallest to largest, was on the wall.
It was a gift from one of her regular customers at The Scrambled Egg.
The room was simple and beautiful, like her.
She picked up a small book, Poems for a Brown Eyed Girl, and turned on the lamp.
She sat down on the sofa and stretched out her legs in front of her.
She opened the book to the poem ‘Ode to a Migrant Woman’s Feet.’
She read,
Her feet
were calloused and cracked
like rocks
in plowed ground,
like stones
in turned soil,
the soil
she walked over
barefooted
as her grandfather
turned the earth
with donkey and plow.
She had
the feet
of her grandfather,
for she had walked
beside him
down the long rows
of peaches and tomatoes
since the time
she had learned
to toddle.
He had
walked
up and down
those rows
until his feet
were broken and bent
and made him appear
to be
continually
genuflecting
to God,
or to the wealthy land owner,
or to the land itself.
Her feet
would one day
be broken and bent
like that.
When her feet
were in the soil
it was
as if
they were part
of the land,
as if
they held the secrets
of the earth,
as if
they knew the mystery
of how seed
and dirt
and water
can become
a peach
in a tree,
a tomato
on vine.
Her heart
was in her feet,
her heart
was in the land,
her heart
was the mystery.
Her feet spoke,
"Estoy aquí,
I am here,
estoy aquí."
Her feet
were signs
to the world -
"I am
a human being."
“Estoy aquí,” she whispered to the world.
“I am here.”
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