She grew in the gallows
Scavenging along
With dogs and rats
Almost skin and bones
A beauty yet with almond eyes
A target to perverse eyes
Mestiza, they call her.
With skin so pale
And narrow nose
Her father unknown, her mother dark
Walking with the poor
In rags torn and frayed
The gossip of wives
The target of husbands
She grew to be beautiful
Now a woman, her mother frail
She welcomes their desires
Transforms it to cash
Their fantasies fulfilled
A fool’s paradise
Caressing her breast
Gazing at her convincing smile
Enduring without question
Just to live another day
Beneath the scorching
tropical sun
Young or old, local or foreign
S
A gift from the heavens, the girl must think.
The way she sits so perfectly still, as if even the slightest movement will take it away from her, fills my head with her thoughts. She looks at the gift with a happiness I’ve never known. I eat the fruit of the trees every day, yet here is a girl, barely old enough to begin school, looking at the apple with hungry eyes, holding the apple with cautious hands, as if she’s never done so in her life.
I want to tell her to eat it, but I can’t speak her language.
But I can write it.
I take flight off my perch and land in front of the girl. She looks at me curiously