Pat Mora - Borders

Pat Mora The publication of this volume is made possible through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the Texas Commission for the Arts. The following poems first appeared in the publications here noted: Bilingual Christmas and The Grateful Minority in Contact II; Maestro in Password; Love Like Champagne in The Pawn Review; My Mask in New Worlds Unlimited; Disquise in Snippets; Woman Mysteriously Disappears in Phantasmagoria; Same Song in Puerto del Sol. Recovering the past, creating the future Arte Pblico Press
University of Houston
452 Cullen Performance Hall
Houston, Texas 77204-2004 ISBN 978-0-934770-57-6
LC 85-073352 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. All rights reserved.
Copyright 1986 by Pat Mora
Printed in the United States of America 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 for Vernwho believesMy research suggests that men andwomen may speak different languagesthat they assume are the same. Carol Gilligan If were so bright, why didnt we notice? I The side-by-side translations were the easy ones. Our tongues tasted luna chanting, chanting to the words it touched; our lips circled moon sighing its longing.

We knew: similar but different. II And we knew of grown-up talk, how even in our own home like became unlike, how the childs singsong I want, I want burned our mouth when we whispered in the dark. III But us? You and I whove talked for years tossing words back and forth success, happiness back and forth over coffee, over wine at parties, in bed and I was sure you heard, understood, though now I think of it I can remember screaming to be sure. So who can hear the words we speak you and I, like but unlike, and translate us to us side by side?

They knew so much, his hands spoke of the journey from Crystal City to Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, year after year dirt-dusted in fields and orchards, his hands a pillow at night, in bare, cold buildings, family laughter his favorite blanket. On slow days his hands gathered books at city dumps, saved like the memories of smiling hard at that first grade teacher and her noises in the other language that didnt laugh like Spanish. Those hands clenched in the dark at vboras, vboras hissing we dont want you, you people have lice as the school door slammed but Toms learned, and his hands began to hold books gently, with affection.

He searched for stories about his people and finally gave their words sound, wrote the books he didnt have, we didnt have. And he graduated over and over until one day he was Chancellor Rivera, famous Chicano, too needed, his hands too full of us to sit alone and write green stories alive with voices, fiesta of the living, pressing, the present pressing like the hands reaching out to him, and hed hug the small, brown hands, his hands whispering his secret learn, learn his face a wink, teasing out their smiles, a face all could rest in, like the cherries he picked, dark, sweet, round a pit, tooth-breaker for the unwary, the lazy, the cruel. His hands knew about the harvest, tasted the laborers sweat in the sweet cantaloupes he sliced, knew how to use laughter to remove stubborn roots of bitter weeds: prejudice, indifference, the boy from Crystal City, Texas, not a legend to be shelved, but a man whose abrazos still warm us yet say, Now you.

wrap their babies in the American flag, feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie, name them Bill and Daisy, buy them blonde dolls that blink blue eyes or a football and tiny cleats before the baby can even walk, speak to them in thick English, hallo, babee, hallo, whisper in Spanish or Polish when the babies sleep, whisper in a dark parent bed, that dark parent fear, Will they like our boy, our girl, our fine american boy, our fine american girl? She counts cement cracks little Esperanza with the long brown braids, counts so as not to hear the girls in the playground singing, the farmers in the dell, the farmers in the dell, laughing and running round-round while little Esperanza walks head down eyes full of tears. The nurse takes the child, but Esperanza walks alone across the loud street, through the graveyard gates down the dirt path, walks faster, faster away from ghosts with long arms, no hi-ho the dairy-o here, runs to that other school for Mexicans, every day wanting to stay close to home, every day wanting to be the farmer in the dell, little Esperanza in the long brown braids counts cement cracks ocho, nueve, diez. The game has changed girl/child, no humming or singing in these halls, long, dark, ending at the desk you want, where youd sit adding numbers one by one, a C.P.A., daisies on your desk.

I study hard you say, your smile true, like dawn is, fresh, vulnerable, but my English language scares you, makes your palms sweat when you speak before a class. I say my speeches to my dolls you say. Dolls? The game has changed, girl/child. I hear you once singing to those unblinking eyes lined up on your bed Vbora, vbora de la mar, your words light in your mouth. Now at twenty you stand before those dolls tense, feet together, tongue thick, dry, pushing heavy English words out. In class I hide my hands behind my back.

They shake. My voice too. I know the new rules, girl/child, one by one, vboras Ive lived with all my life, learned to hold firmly behind the head. If I teach you, will your songs evaporate, like dawn?

We are the first of our people to walk this path. We move cautiously unfamiliar with the sounds, guides for those who follow. Our people prepared us with gifts from the land, fire herbs and song hierbabuena soothes us into morning rhythms hum in our blood abrazos linger round our bodies cuentos whisper lessons en espaol.

We do not travel alone. Our people burn deep within us.

I live in a doorway between two rooms. I hear quiet clicks, cups of black coffee, click, click like facts: budgets, tenure, curriculum, from careful women in crisp beige suits, quick beige smiles that seldom sneak into their eyes. I peek in the other room seoras in faded dresses stir sweet milk coffee, laughter whirls with steam from fresh tamalessh, sh, mucho ruido, they scold one another, press their lips, trap smiles in their dark, Mexican eyes. Do you hear what I hear?Buenos das and hasta luego in board rooms and strategy sessions.

Where are your grateful holiday smiles, bilinguals? Ive given you a voice, let you in to hear old friends tell old jokes. Stop flinching. Drink eggnot. Hum along. Not carols we hear, whimpering, children too cold to sing on Christmas eve. Do you see what I see adding a dash of color to conferences and corporate parties one per panel or office slight South-of-the-border seasoning feliz navidad and prspero ao nuevo, right? Relax.

Eat rum balls. Watch the snow. Not twinkling lights we see but search lights seeking illegal aliens outside our thick windows.