In Ramona's Kitchen

At dawn when chickens stirred
Ramona and her daughter brought
warm tortillas and sweet water
tinted brown with precious beans—
they call this coffee. We have spent the night
in sleeping bags on the schoolhouse floor.
But while washing breakfast dishes in buckets
we break a plate of her matching ten.
Jennie repairs it with fingernail glue
as temporal as our visit here
and because I speak some Spanish,
I am sent to return it.

I walk among casas where cows,
dogs, and children play. ¿Donde es Ramona?
Allá, a boy says, pointing.
She smiles when I tell
how the plate slipped from a hand.
No usa any more, I say.
De nada, de nada, she says
and waves me in to see her casa,
first the bedroom where everyone
sleeps—she, her husband, her daughter, her husband,
small Blanquita and José. Si, estan mi grandchildren.
Today to honor the Norté Americans
José will wear the tuxedo his uncle brought from Monterrey.
Blanquita is quiet, but she is happy.

In Ramona's kitchen, matching cups
hang in the cupboard against mud walls.
Day and night the stone hearth breathes;
kettles simmer brown beans, milk, cactus.
Always tortillas and jalapeños are ready to eat.

This morning, men, home from herding cattle,
gather at the long table for breakfast,
serve themselves from Ramona's fire.
One man reaches for the ladle
and the broken plate from Ramona.
Stop! I try to say but don't know break
in their language. De nada, she says again,
tapping the plate, her fingernails thick,
smooth as grain.

from Los Hijos, Longleaf Press, ©2010