poetry

Malinche
by J. Neil C. Garcia

Many Mexicans continue to revile the woman called Doña Marina by the Spaniards and La Malinche by the Aztecs, labeling her a traitor and harlot for her role as the alter-ego of Cortez in his conquest of Mexico.

If indeed, as they accuse me, I have let you in,
let the banner and the armor
and the sword of you in,
it is because into your world
you first allowed me soft
and ungrudging entry.
My people do not see,
in the sun-struck clarity of their dreams,
I have merely returned the favor.
Not to the vengeful conquering god
with skin showing pale as bleached maize,
but to the man, whose random tongue
I learned to hear, to trick and follow
as it skipped and slipped past bare-boned words:
movements of an alien music.
Lit up from its roots by hope, it trilled and
lolled and shyly swiveled,
and I began to see, as if through a curtain
parting, warm crystal in your eyes,
ocean in your mouth in which I craved to swim,
for in its depths I may lie lost and drowned, but free.
How strange, for it is only now I realize
my shame, this wordless love for strangers:
the delicate sandaled feet, their fitful fingers,
the famished look in their open faces
laved by an astonishment
I cannot hope to share, unless I myself depart,
set sail for the horizon hemming in my home.
Every other sound you made told me
I am lovely, your gaze a potter’s callused hands
stroking, fluting me to shape. In your clasp
I seek the opportunity to come alive,
as flat upon my mother’s mat I am mostly dead,
or at least mournfully suspended, pendant over my soul’s
dim basin. One day soon it shall be written:
because of me an empire fell, a nation lost its heart,
its memories of gold. Why should I care, in truth?
On the offered palm of a stranger
my joy’s flame-red fruit pulsed and beckoned.
A child, I simply took and ate.

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