PulpLit.net

La Ruana

There is no aspirin in the village,
but bananas and mangoes are free for the taking.
It is ninety degrees in the shade,
I drip sweat constantly.
The mosquitoes are fierce and silent.
The earth moved at 9:35 in the morning,
7.5 on the Richter scale.
The house shivered and a framed picture slid from the wall.
We hurried outside where the ground still quivered,
and I held onto a shaking tree.
In the city forty-four people have died.
Here, the sun pours from the open sky.
Flies circle endlessly.
They killed a goat to celebrate my suegra's saint's day.
Cut its throat while it gasped in desperation, while the children hovered to watch.
They hung it by one leg and skinned it outside my bedroom window.
The remaining goat is shut in a pen with the birds.
They say it is sad.
When the earth shook, the bell in the church tower rang.
The sun went on shining with damnable brilliance.
Last night we went to mass in the church.
Creo un solo dios, Padre todo poderoso . . .
The roads are deep rutted,
although in el Centro they are being repaired.
In the afternoons they pile trash in the street and burn it.
The hot air is bitter with smoke.
When the earth shook, my suegra knelt down and prayed aloud.
Later she made morisceta and we ate it under the tree, surrounded by flies.
Change comes here, but it comes very slowly.

Victoria Randall lives in Seattle. She writes a monthly fantasy column for Alienskinmag, and is the author of The Ring of the Dark Elves, available at www.talesoffantasy.com.