On the Myth of Santa Tecla
A man will ask for my hand
and I will cut it off.
Another will grow
and I will cut it off again.
The man will think:
what a perfect woman, she is a tree of hands:
she’ll be able to milk the goats,
make cheese,
cook the chickpeas,
get water from the river,
make my underclothes.
But I will keep cutting off my hands
when he says:
Woman, I’ve asked for your hand,
and you must milk the goats.
Woman, you are mine,
bring water from the river,
serve the cheese,
go into town for wine.
My hands will fall like flowers fall
and they will roam the fields,
stubborn:
They will not milk the goats,
nor go into town for wine,
they won’t ever mend his underwear,
and never,
much less,
will they cradle his testicles.
The man will say:
What a wicked woman,
she is a curse of hands.
He will get a hatchet,
and cut off my arms.
New ones will be born.
Then he will think
that the origin of life is found in the navel
and will cut my body in two.
My thousands of cut hands
will turn blue
and will move.
They will dry the wheat,
will play with the water,
will dry the river,
will uproot the pasture,
will poison the goats,
the cheese.
And the man will think:
What an awful curse:
it must be forbidden to ask the hand of a woman with a will.
biobibliographical note: elena salamanca (b. 1982) is a contemporary poet from el salvador
source of the poem: https://iwp.uiowa.edu/sites/iwp/files/Salamanca%20Formatted%20Writing%20Sample%20English.pdf