On
her fiftieth birthday
(for Christine)
She found it
in basement mothballs,
frills spicy as hissing maracas,
colors vibrant as market day.
The next morning she turned
from academic must,
from dry husks
of stillborn poems,
and walked barefoot
to the supermarket
in her grandmother's dress,
where her brown hands
squeezed chiles and
tomatillos,
pinched the scent
from cilantro.
That night her words
plumped and steamed,
rich with ground corn and green fire.
Fifty and newborn,
she ate tamale poems
barefingered
in her grandmother's dress.
© Jo Deurbrouck, 1999
(for Christine)
She found it
in basement mothballs,
frills spicy as hissing maracas,
colors vibrant as market day.
The next morning she turned
from academic must,
from dry husks
of stillborn poems,
and walked barefoot
to the supermarket
in her grandmother's dress,
where her brown hands
squeezed chiles and
tomatillos,
pinched the scent
from cilantro.
That night her words
plumped and steamed,
rich with ground corn and green fire.
Fifty and newborn,
she ate tamale poems
barefingered
in her grandmother's dress.
© Jo Deurbrouck, 1999