Estonia

Estonia wore a liver milagro charm on a thin piece of rawhide around her neck and slept with her teeth in a jar. She was dreaming as she often did of the four children she conceived in Mexico. They had  been born in bright colors and dust. Her first child Nina thought her baby sister Lizette was a pig squealing in a blanket when they brought her out of the birthing room. When her third child Michelle was born both sisters understood that the magic package was  part of the family; something they could eventually play with someone, that would have to be fed and protected. Her fourth child Tai was a son The girls thought he had a worm between his legs but accepted it quickly and loved him the best because he was the baby and otherly to them.

In her minds dreaming eye, Estonia's children were frozen in childhood like ornate dolls sleeping in her chest. She'd pull them out to look at them floating above her body and blow into them hoping to bring them to life but it was her own breath that fell back on herself. They just stared.

 

Better to live in her chest than be scattered like ashes over a vast grave of time

 

She would again put them back into her chest but not before singing them each their own song

 

Little Nina

my pet star

twirling brightly from afar

 

Little Lizette

pumpkin face

smiling seeds

and wearing lace

 

Little Michelle

by the wishing well

where you fell and I kissed your knees stinging like bees

 

Little Tai

my broken flower and only son

you died in a war we never won

 

This is how it had been for very long

Estonia sing -songing her grief into dawn

 

She was growing old now but still road her bicycle around town

and could sing in four languages for anyone who would listen

You could see her in The Plaza she'd wear paper flowers in her hair and sit

under the shade of a tree and wait for a stray musician to accompany her songs

 

Sometimes she spit on the tourists if they happened to run into her

late on a Friday night after she'd been drinking wine at a series of art openings

But, if she knew you then you might just get your own serenade of madness and desire

and maybe a dance.

She'd pull up her skirt to expose her knees and smile at you like a shipwreck

then spread her arms like seaweed and launch into notes  cascading wildly up and down

punching the air loudly then soft like the strange guttural cries of a cat in heat

both sinister and sweet

This lone song loon could carry her tune into the trenches of poverty and bliss

and emerge triumphant like a muddy kiss.

 

Other times when the town went quiet

you could

 hear her voice piercing clearly through the air like a nightingale

and the wind would  stir the trees and the sound would find you with a brief caress and leave you feeling lonely, bruised and a somehow blessed