A poem by Rudy H. García

No one really knows how old
She is.
But she sure does look old,
Under those Mexican dresses
She wears to school every day
She looks older
Than the rest of us,
Because her feet,
Her feet, give her age away.
Like thirty maybe? Maybe more…
You can tell by
Looking at her toes… sticking out from under her huaraches made of some kind of leather, or something,
Her toe nails are thick, like the first communion bible my padrinos give me when I was eight.
And they are some kind of brownish color, or something
Like the color of
Old nails you find in your father`s tool box
The bended nails he never
Wants to throw away, because he says to you
He may have a use for those nails someday.
She`s old
Because
Her hands tell me so
Her finger nails are short and flat, like thumb-tacks, and they don`t pass the tip of her fingers
Like mine and my sister`s do
And her hands, and her fingers
Are kinda plump
Like the janitor lady that works here
But only her hands
And her fingers are plump

Not she,
She`s skinny.
Maybe she`s skinny
Because
She doesn`t eat too much.
In the cafeteria
She only takes a few bits off her food tray.
Then, when she thinks nobody is looking
She, very quickly, like a cat, an ocelot, or something
Paws what’s left on her tray into some paper towel napkins
Brown ones
The rough kind of paper towel napkins
The ones the principal puts for us
In the rest rooms
And she sticks the leftovers in her purse of many colors made from straw, or something.
I guess she must have a doggie at home she takes her left over’s to, or something, or someone.

I really think she`s old
Because
She doesn`t show us
Her face,
Not too much,
She looks down a lot
And her hair looks down a lot too
They both do.
Except one time, one morning, I remember…
She looked up
And her hair looked up too
They both looked up when she heard someone say
Hola Rosa, Buenos Dias…como estas?
She said back
Bien.

And when bien opened her mouth
I think it was on accident or something…
I saw she had some shiny metal, kinda yellow, bordering
One of her teeth,
The kinda shiny metal olden people
That go to the dentists in Mexico come back with between their teeth.
At first, I thought it was
Gold
What she put between her teeth
And I thought that people, who put gold in their mouth like that, must
have a lot of money or something…
Until one day
I asked my social studies teacher,
Do people from Mexico that use gold on their teeth
Have a lot of money?

And he said
No,
There`s no more
Gold
In Mexico.

We got it all out of there a long time ago
The only
Gold
Left in Mexico now
Is what those people are able to find
And stick it… between their teeth
But don`t worry
Some day when they die,
We`ll get that
Gold
Too.
So, everyday I wonder
When I see her in school
I wonder… how old is she?
She hardly ever talks
So she tells nobody
And the kids barely ever talk to her
So they don`t ask
She sure looks like she`s been around a long, long time, or something…

December 16, 2006