La Infancia De la Nina

Luci

La Nina knows no fun

She will know how to make a home, however.

Te Prometo

Before the day is out.

She will make cafe de greca, she will make the bed,

she will learn to tread a line. To keep a house

keep a man, keep her mouth shut.

She will learn to cook with fire

but be told never to start one.

She will learn to fight for her children

after being told she has had too many.

She will learn to prepare her nina

have no fun. Fun does not make a home or

A wife. Fun doesn’t cook rice or make coffee.

Fun is the rupture of a dream left,

unsaid in an unmade bed.

Fun is the memory of a tradition

Left on the vine of several other fruit-bearing trees.

La Nina is the seed of a mother

Who was told never to have fun.