(Laura Maria “Perez” Pacheco)
My mother with the one arm).
In deep sleep, with the mouth all distorted,
Delivering dry mouth “baba” bubbles
Into the air above her pursed lips. Open-mouthed,
chupando lagrimas—“Sin espina, o con?”
A question asked by bodequeros when you want to buy their bacalao.
(Espinas, spines, bones)
With bones or bacaloa without bones?
(saltier by far)….
Caution.
This is a Cautionary Tale.
Her story unfolds like the unfolding saga Text of Dr. Who, Traveling Time Lord of the Ancient galaxies on BBC,TV, except her’s comes deep from the “Caribe”…the favorite haunt of pirates of the Caribbean.
A Cuban and a Spaniard-Puerto Rican got together and made a baby–Her—la chica: Laura Perez.
Laura Maria Perez
Perecemos!
Esta es la Historia de Laura, A Gothic Horror!,
A Historical Romance,
And sensational “Top Story,”
soon to be both an educational
and popular narrative text of a wise old Latina vieja, senora Laura (alias Jean Harlow); Laurita; Mima; (a name for a grandmother); My Culture Girl; My Ultimate PuertoRican Dubler.
I doubled her. Daughter celled her. Spring orphan. Spring offed her. I am her off spring.
My mother, who with just one arm had 12 plus children,
(…that some had to circle the toilet bowl, in Manhattan’s West side flats, was no fault of her own)
And in the wake of 3 common-law husbands!
Green eyes, blond hair with a fair skin, Blanquita, blanquita,
Unstoppable.\
Like the bus that took her arm off.
Grafted skin from the back to the front of the legscrape that was trampled on and tossed about by a failed brakes bus in Puerto Rico’s ‘Calle 21.”
Calle Veinte-Una,
Whose trailing streets demanded the life of her step father, none other than her father’s brother, an Uncle, that stepped to it, when her father disowned her. Perez.
Perecemos en otros barrios, pero no en calle 21.
Street called Calle 21 who soaked the blood of her step father’s life as the blaring siren of the Red Cross Bus skidded and scraped him to death and rubbed him into the streets like you would sabonar a pig or a pollo alzao.
Roasted is the idea now.
A life roasted in a hard skin. One looks for God to answer the question.
Why is it that good people suffer so?
Why is it that 1932’s Huracan San Ciprian roared through Puerto Rico and danced off to Cuba, while landing softly in Santo Domingo on soft padded feet?
Why did it leave my mother’s family in such a mess…to begin with. In the Beginning it was always a Mess. Mass. Messaia. Messenger.
La Calle 21 took my mama’s arm, kept her alive, but took my mama’s father (step father) a few years later, and gave her years of Red Cross blankets (without the small pox) and many milks of KLIM ( a dry powdered milk).
Blanquita, blanquita.
Leche blanquita
Color de leche
Fria y florecita.
Dale por la manana
Que se quede aquita.
Non-science (non-sense)by
La Poeta
Irmita,
la chiquita,
Hay Bendita.
Que Dios te Bendiga,
Y Perdona Todo Lo Malo.
Amen.
irma Gonzalez 2010 February 4
You need to be a member of She Writes to add comments!
Join She Writes