Maria Elena Hicks was born in Mexico and moved to the United States as an infant. While growing up, she returned to Mexico for months at a time to visit her grandmother, who passed away in 2003. She remembers playing with other little girls while their grandmothers sat and talked. About this poem, Maria says, “Las Comadres reminds me of a rich Mexican culture that now, in my Richmond VA home with my blue-eyed, blond-haired husband and children, seems so very far away.”

Las Comadres
By Maria Elena Hicks

They sit together in the sunny day,
Shielding their sunburnt faces from the glare
And the wind of May.

“Como te fue con el pollo, ayer?”

“Hasta al gallo le gusto!” one of the others says.

They all giggle and their faces flush red.
Their eyes have mellowed and drawn deeper in their heads,
Their raven hair is now speckled with gray.

One of them is looking far away.
A smile creeps across her worn face,
And her dark brown eyes come to life again.

She remembers when they all played
Ran in the plazita and would turn
And laugh, wave and run from the three old women
sitting on this same worn bench.

How time has overtaken her,
She thinks. It seems like only ayer
That she ran and jumped rope and wiggled in
Her hoop, her long black braids trailing
As she raced.

A tear breaks through
She looks away, up to the sky and says,
“Parece que va llover, no?”

“Que va llover?” another asks. “Nunca llueve en May!”
But she pretends not to notice the moistened cheek,
Of her dear old friend. She looks at the worn-out hopscotch
Stains on the sidewalk in front of their favorite bench.
She too remembers the days, now so long ago and far away.

There used to be a street vendor
Right over there, she can still smell
Fresh roasted peanuts, can taste the cool of the
aguas, so sweet and fresh in May.

“Mango, limon, o de magay,” the old man would say.
Her answer, always the same, she’d feel around her pocket,
And pull out the tiny leather black coin purse,
“Hay de tamarindo?”

“Ya llueve!” the third declares.
As each feels the cool of the rain hit her back,
Each hides the disappointment away.

“Hasta manana,” they say. If they were children
They might just stay
And continue to play until their mothers called them away.
But not today. Today there is laundry and grandchildren
And dinners to make.

“Hasta manana!” And they will meet here another day.