Maria

Maria
She was born in a Mexican prison
nestled at the breast, her mother cursing cockroaches in the dark.
She was taken and raised by nuns
in the courtyard she closed her eyes,
pressed her cheek to the cool stone skirts
of Our Lady and whispered a child's
“Our Fathers”.

She grew fast, she grew strong. She ran with the street,
she ran with the gangs, with the chollos.
Hers was a wild and violent love.
Men whose bullet-blade-bitch-scars traced pale lines on tough brown skin.

Not beholden to custom, nor family pride
she was a dancer, no home girl,
she spun amid lights blazing the night,
turning her tricks with lightning edge
and slight of hand

her soft coffee thighs, a long milky latte. Her voice
and words coming in soft torrents, staccato
gentle drilling, like rain on iron sheets.

Maria
She was held at gun-point for three days
for the honour of her man.

Honour.
She's never told a single lie.
It's unnerving. Her lack of deceit.
She'd sooner spit at your feet, twist your arm up your back in a flash,
baring teeth till you begged.
Mercy.

Mercy.
She wept at the grave of a father she had never seen.
It was not for him. Tender-rare fragments swelling up, dizzying, dizzying
until she broke.
The rain came.

Four times, she has felt life glimmer, kick, ebb...sliding, slipping away
leaving her. Empty.
She had the would-be names inked up her arm.
whispering a sullen thank you for a bitter near-escape
from mothering, from childhood
God not here, not in these streets.

Packages of cocaine the size of a man's torso.
Boys lying face down in blood-puddles
mingled together flowing, gushing for the gutter.
Mothers screaming, tearing their hair
red-blue sirens wailing, breaking the air.

Maria
She comes now, moving down the street,
long dark hair stolen by silver.
Hips a little rounder, a little softer.

Her step lost some of its spring, but she moves with a dancer's poise
Her twice-broken nose and split-chin scar, her tattoos and gold rings

contrast her simple black dress, like a village grandmother,
like one of the Sisters.
Like a widow.
She has outlived them all.
She has the survived shoot-outs and stake-outs and she is old.
Almost wise. Almost a sage. Waiting for rain.

She comes now, Maria, making her way up to the gates of the convent,
children in the yard running up, calling out
“Cholla Maria! Santo Maria!”

She laughs, the gaps in her smile embellished with gold.
She presses coins and sweets into their palms,
lets her hand brush and rest on their heads, as if in blessing.

No, she says, she won't come inside and see the Sisters...to reminisce,
to remember. No, she's marked for out here.
You can see by her skin, you can see by her eyes
she belonged to these streets before she first bled.

She tells them; try hard at your lessons and be good for the Sisters
She tells them she better not see them out here after dark
and mutters half-prayers that she won't.

At the sound of a bell, they run inside,
their singing fills the yard.
Maria closes her eyes
Presses her cheek against the cool metal bars of the gates, and she waits.
She waits for the rain.