Poems include: A Mother Thinks about Her Daughter Who Crossed the Border Advice to a Good Daughter; Advice to a Good Daughter; From a Documented Emigrant to an Undocumented Immigran

Nieves, Yolanda

English

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Diálogo Volume 10 Number 1 Article 11 2007 Poems Yolanda Nieves Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo  Part of the Latin American Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Nieves, Yolanda (2007) "Poems," Diálogo: Vol. 10 : No. 1 , Article 11. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo/vol10/iss1/11 This Rincón Creativo is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Latino Research at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in Diálogo by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact digitalservices@depaul.edu. Her knees have spent a year on the floor. They are callous from praying and scrubbing tiles in rich neighborhoods. The joint in her hands are bulbous from hard labor; they look beaded when locked in a prayer.See the black and white photo of her daughter? The eyes are deep, a smile as wide as country.Her daughter crossed la frontera to el norte. It is always north: Juarez, Laredo, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New York - the white frontiers. Cloudy. Cold. Most evenings she weaves fiber into tapestry, pulling under and over the loom bought with some money her daughter had sentsome years ago.A neighbor woman with a warm heart sits in a chair next to her.Quiet words tossed lightly back and forth across cloth and loom softens the chill that makes her throat tight as if a round stone had slowly grown there. She touches a letter in her pocket her daughter had mailedsome years ago.Some women quarrel and hold loneliness like a hot coal against their breasts, Others sit steamy biting their nails. Some women listen to music but do not dance. Others cry ceaselessly. This one sits by a window until morning holding the letter close to her breast, the ink in the letter fades.Fence along the United States and Mexico border (Aqua Prieta, Sonora and Douglas, Arizona). Facing the United States by Sylvia Escarcega (2004).54 SUMMER 2007 NO. 10A  M other Thinks Ab o u t her Daughter W ho C rossed the Bordera d v i c e  t o  a  g o o d  d a u g h t e rI g iv e  y o u  p e rm is s io n  t o  b e  s in  v e r g ü e n z a .  t o  w a lk  in a w o r ld  o f  s m o k e y  c ig a rs , c a r b u r e to r  oil a n d  b r o k e n  b e e r  b o t t l e s  w i t h o u t  s h a m e .D o n 't  e a t  y o u r  in s id e  o u t  w a i t in g  f o r  t h e  d a n c e  t o  b e g ino r  s p e a k  o n ly  w h e n  y o u  a r e  s p o k e n  t o  o r  s it o n  a c h a ir  like  a  p a c k a g e  s t r a p p e d  by  r ib b o n s  a n d  b o w s .W e a r  y o u r  t a t t o o  p ro u d ly . Let y o u r  e y e s  m e e t  th e i r s  h e a d  o n . B e llo w  o u t  t h e  t r u t h .  L et y o u r  w o r d s  s t in g  like  s u n b u r n .  A d a r t  h i t t in g  a b u ll 's  e y e .S te p  in s o m e  m u d . R ub  it in s o m e o n e 's  f a c e  o n c e  in a w h ile . R un in to  t h e  ra in  w i t h o u t  a n  u m b re l la .  D rink  t e q u i la  s t r a ig h t  f ro m  t h e  b o t t l e .  S ing  y o u r  s o n g s  h a rd y  a n d  la te  in to  t h e  n ig h t  u n til  y o u  la u g h  a n d  cry a t  t h e  s a m e  t im e .4C o m e  h o m e  la te  w i t h o u t  a  p r o p e r  e x c u se  e m b r o id e r  y o u r  o w n  life  t h e n  s le e p  in a p ra y e r .Yes, m i h ijaI g iv e  y o u  p e rm is s io n  t o  b e  s in  v e rg u e n z a .Emigrate - to leave a country or region to settle in another.From a Documented Emigrant Immigrant - to come into a new country, especially to settle there.to an - Webser's New World DictionaryUndocumented ImmigrantI know you must cross desserts and mountains, even an ocean. The nights are frigid and tight like a fist. You will walk under the heat of the sun. Hope grows like wild onions you are forced to eat. You carry a knife but it cannot cut the web of melancholy that has spun around your dreams. To pay for emergencies your uncle sent you money curled in a rubber band, stuffed in a sock. A woman walked between blue and black, this money tucked under her breast. She knocks at your door. Her story is another story. You are to tell no one you have any.Your father shook your hand and sniffed into his dusty handkerchief. Your mother boiled eggs, wrapped some bread and cheese in a cloth, tucked it into your hands. She held you so tight your breath shrank in your eyes while she wept in her apron-the one you gave her last year. That night your neighbors lit a candle, held their rosaries a bit tighter praying vaya con Dios. Reaching the bend in the road you glance back one last time. Your eyes stretched to engrave the horizon in your heart. It throbbed in your throat.Stuffed into a freight truck or a cargo ship, fifty others have the same dream. You wonder if there is room for all of you across the border. I did, too.PREVIOUS POEMS APPEAR IN YOLANDA NIEVES' FIRST BOOK, DOVE OVER CLOUDS. PUBLISHED BY PLAINVIEW PRESS, 2006.YOLANDA NIEVES, a native ofHumboldt Park in Chicago, teaches reading to inner city students at Wright College. As a Puerto Rican poet, she writes about the Latina women's experience and perspectives related to Latino youth growing up in a culture of marginalization. She has been published in various anthologies and journals including, the University of Arizona's Bilingual Review, and Coloring Book, and Eclectic Anthology of Fiction & Poetry by Multicultural Writers. Contact her: yolinieves@msn.com56 SUMMER 2007 NO.IOOur families arrive awkward together. We wash the same dishes, take care of each other's children, sleep to dream the same dreams, invent other lives. You are my brother. Your daughter is my daughter. Our hearts beg us to go home, our stomachs remind us of our hunger. We squeeze work like a woman does water from her hair. In this country we are whispers, an echo bleeding only after our day's work. Eyes erase us. We tiptoe not to startle the hope that flutters tiny. We will not be ashamed of our fifteen syllable name. I want to pour the strength of stones into your eyes and make our exile weightless. We can't reach where we want to go alone.This poem can be translated into any language,

Poems

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