Witness: on tejana borderland
chicana tongues on fire

Chagina,
you knew

We filled up gallon jugs with water
for 25 cents
at the corner watermill in Weslaco
ten at a time once a week
I said you brought costumbres
from Mexico we didn’t need here
you wouldn’t let us drink the water
but we bathed in it.
I tasted it once
Nothing happened. 

Chagina, now they write
articles how the same
water we buy is the same water
from the streams and lakes
but our kids are still getting sick.
Chagina, you knew
before I understood

and I watched you from the window
water the lime trees and rose bushes
you tried to grow
listening to Los Yonics
on old cassettes
sing about rosas blancas
and dressing de luto
‘Apa told me prima hermanas
were almost like sisters
and I didn’t understand

Chagina, the day of your funeral
I spoke to a class about Gloria
and what Home means.
At the funeral I imagined what
you’d say about my green hair.
You worked the fields up north
till you were 13,
then in la bodega in Monte Alto
packing fajita and cuts of meat
until you fell off a ladder at 45

they wouldn’t pay a doctor
said it was your fault

Your body held on for years.
the violence on your brown body Chagina
no one wrote you a poem

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