“¿Cómo estás, Luisa?” Gabby asked the small woman in the window seat of the city bud as she sat down beside her. “How you doin’?”
“Bien,” Luisa answered. “A little tired. I cleaned a lot of rooms at the Poinsett Hotel today. ¿Y tu?”
“Si, bien. Un poco cansado, tambien. I scrambled a lot of eggs at the Scrambled Egg. I can’t wait to put my feet up and rest them. What you doing this evening?”
“I’m going to cook supper for my family and take my daughter to help me clean the doctor’s office. Then I’ll rest.”
Gabby put her arm around Luisa’s shoulder and hugged her.
“Eres una buena mujer,” she said. “You are a good woman. I’m glad you’re my friend.”
“Yo también, mi amiga. Yo también.”
Gabby got off the bus in front of her apartment.
‘Sup Gabby. How you doin’?” asked Bryant, who everyone called Big B.
“Hola Big B. Not much. Just glad to be home. How was your day?”
“It was all good. The squeaky wheel got the grease, as they say, today and ev’ry day.”
“One of these days I’m gonna buy a car and the only person I’m gonna let work on it is you.”
“Deal. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”
“Sure thing! Same here.”
“You could come over and cook up some steak and eggs for me, you know.”
“Ugh, anything but that. I’ve cooked enough steak and eggs today...and ev’ry day!”
“Bet. I’m jus’ kiddin’ wit’ cha. Night Gabby. Be safe.”
“Night B. You be safe, too.”
She took her key out of her pocket 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 made of a cut board and two concrete blocks against the wall.
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 a small book of poems from the bookshelf, Poems For A Brown-Eyed Girl.
She turned on the lamp and sat down on the sofa.
She stretched out her legs in front of her and opened the book to the poem “An Ode to Feet.”
She read out loud.
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 walked
beside him
down long rows
of beans and corn.
He walked
up and down
those rows
until his feet
were bent and broken
and made him appear
to be
continually
genuflecting
to God,
or to the wealthy land owner,
or to the land itself.
Her feet
one day
would be bent and broken
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
become
a bean
in a pod,
a kernel
on an ear
of corn.
Her heart
was in her feet,
her heart
was in the land,
her heart
was the mystery.
Her feet spoke,
"Estoy aquí,
estoy aquí."
Her feet
were signs
to the world -
"I am here."
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