I. I called my dad for the rest of the story
in mid-spring chuckwalla
lizards shed skin and stories
told in halves are reborn
as: nana migrated up thru the north,
el paso or maybe further east
somehow,
with a sprig of thyme for courage
and a spine of aloe vera for protection
on a dusty road outside mexico city
rebeca hitches a ride with a traveling
doctor and rides thru the coahuila desert
straight to the u.s. border
or she walks from pueblo to pueblo,
cooks thru the homes of midwives,
farmers, hacendados and bandits
she ends up in louisiana, el bosque bayou:
mujer de méxico – no hablaba ingles
trabajando en una cocina francés
dad dijo:
my nana was a curandera
de la cocina
she just had to stick her finger in
the pot
and stir.
II. nana breaks bread with canal coyotes
bargains her passage from a man with
conch shell teeth, gold eyes inlaid in
mother-of-pearl and skin mosaic of
jade stone – river rat who steers the
chalupa down xochimilco, lake valley
of the old spirits
nana trades her best wooden spoon,
chile chapulines – picante pero sabroso,
romero stems bathed under the glow
of a harvest moon and her grandmother’s
rebozo, silk wool sueño spun con amor
III. I heard a family story, once,
a legend como la leyenda de la llorona
about a woman who left her home
una mujer who lost her familia
traveled a long road over desert sand
skillet sizzle and blessed yerba
a few differences between my nana
y la llorona: she never lost her
children, never had a man as far as I
know (I didn’t hear the whole cuento
so I can’t say for sure) migrating
foot by foot, she cooked her way through
méxico, tossed corn with four star
chefs, learned a few tricks of a trade
and prayed with salamanders for a desert
wind to carry her across the río grande
Antonia Silva is a queer Mexican-American poet from Santa Ana, California with a B.A. in English from Reed College. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she works at Poompui, a Thai food truck. Her work is forthcoming in Winter Tangerine.