FROM THE FIELD
Vol. IV, No. 1: Spring, 2005
The Bus Station
by
George Colman
I read the scrawled sign on the shabby wall of the old, abandoned school, "Tickets Puerto Escondido Upstairs." There was no one around, no one at all. I wondered if this was the right place and took the two flights of stairs slowly, liking the feel of the black iron railing, leaning on it as if favoring a bad leg. At the top, a guard watched me coming. I saw a heavy belt, blue trousers, a tight black T-shirt, the shotgun.
"Buenas tardes," I offered. He looked at me and said nothing. "Ticket office?" I asked. He pointed down the hall. The fourth door was open. There was one table in the bare room and a thin woman sitting by it reading. Dusty light streamed through unwashed windows across floor marks where desks had once been fastened, across wall marks where students had stood at blackboards, across a large, lighter square high along one wall where Benito Juarez had hung, staring sternly down. The woman did not look up. "Tickets to Puerto Escondido?" I intruded. She laid the book down and nodded at the only other chair. I sat and thought about the guard outside, the zero people anywhere aound. "I hear there's been trouble."
Her eyes clouded as if she didn't understand.
"The morning paper says buses are running into road blocks, bandits. Passengers are getting robbed, sometimes killed."
She shook her head, "Only at night. Go in the morning and you don't have trouble. The bus is de lujo: television, movies, bano, muy comodo." She pushed an empty seating chart across the table, "Pick any one you want."
There were no names on it, no reservations. "No one else is going? Everyone's afraid?"
"No, no," she explained, as if to a wayward child. "They don't have money. If they had money, they'd fill the bus. Why be afraid?"
I saw again the photo in the morning paper. Two bodies on the ground, uncovered. "Let's just say that what happened last night is not encouraging. You must have heard about it."
She waved it off. "They only kill troublemakers. So don't upset them. Just give enough: an old watch, a wallet full of small bills, expired credit cards. They'll be in a hurry. Keep what you need under your seat or taped to your leg. But give enough. You don't make trouble, you don't get trouble."
+++
Las Mujeres de Mi Pueblo
poem
by
Michele Gibbs
las mujeres de mi pueblo,
de mi barrio en la Diaspora Africana
de las Costas Chicas del mundo
son dura
con la sabiduria de los ancestros
como una cabeza Tolteca
de piedra.
somos vieja
sobrevivientes de un tiempo
esperando a venir, otra vez
tal vez, no tenemos zapatos, ni ropas.
hace siglos,
nuestra cuerpo es el territoro
de violaciones continuos
y nuestra memoria trae las cicatrices,
diario,
visibles bajo el maquillaje.
somos enojada.
rojo como la sangre de otro nino mas
que no podemos guardar,
la decimacion de nuestra tribu y futuro.
somos las locas.
somos el fin de la linea
y acabado
con colaboracion con esclavitud
en todas las formas.
somos unidos
en la lucha para semillas a germinar,
agua, aire, y terreno a reclamar,
una gente a reassemblar.
buscando nuestra poder,
con nada mas que perder
ademas nuestra vida,
somos listo.
nuestras bocas son abiertas
y tambien, nuestras ojos y corazones,
y esteran como asi
por siempre.
la florera de mi vida
la florera de mi vida es llena
con hojas de palabras
marcando rostros de mi gente
que crecen de ramas duras
suspendidan en un liquido
de luchas immemoriales.
ellos dadan los sabores
de nuestra colores
al aire que respiro:
dulce sudor amargo de la cana,
sangre de violaciones,
de naciamientos,
de resistencia, rebeliion, y huelgas,
anos de rios secas,
suenos que mueren,
pesadillas que viven,
la humareda
de nuestros fuegos para comer,
perfume de medianoches inacabable.
todo de eso y mas
mi florera contiene.
si quiere tener una de esas floras,
cuidate:
una toca
va a cambiar te.
ojala.
*
