Hair Growing Out of Her Tongue

Ay Federico sit down and let me make you some Cuban cafe

while you rest those versus you left behind when you were shot

at the border or some plain in Spain. Dear Federico rest, rest my

friend while I tell you about my tia Ela Lee.

Of course we did not call her that. We called her Macuca for some

reason which escapes me. Perhaps it was a name given to her

from her godmother. Did I tell you that she too was my godmother!!
May she rest in peace Federico unlike you who are still creeping up

in our prose. Listen closely friend while the cafe percolates through

the Italian espresso pot. Oh you must try the espumita I make. I learned

it from a Cuban woman sometime long ago in Miami. Sit, sit.

Si, let me get back to Tia Macuca whose hair was spicy red and

her smoldering eyes would melt your heart Federico. I can just imagine

her reading to you her own poetry for she did not have hair growing

out of her tongue. She was not embarrassed to read her own poems to

el unico Federico Garcia Lorca! No sir. No senor mio. No.

Ay Federico, she is gone.

She is gone from this earth but she is still living like the spirits who

visited her in her little apartment in Glendale, California. She would tell

me they'd come to visit with her and sit on her chair!! The nerve of the

spirits. Who did they think they were Federico? They were not you.

No. She said one of her visitors was Jose Luis Borges!

Can you imagine having Borges sitting in my tia's living room surrounded

with the furniture my grandfather made and the portrait I painted of her?

Have you met him Federico? But why Borges when you are the
greatest poet of all time and died so young to prove it?

I do not know.

Espera que el cafe ya esta listo. Sientate.

Did I tell you she chose not to have children of her own yet took care

of hundreds of them until one broke her and she was never the same again.

The infant died in his sleep. I was told that she carried the child around for

a while crying "esta muerto, esta muerto" until she came to her senses and

called 911. The mother apologized to Ela for the death of her own child!

The grandmother did not blame Ela neither. She blamed her own daughter

for smoking during pregnancy.

Ay Federico. I am sorry. Here drink your cafe. Is it good? Do you want to

hear some music while we reminisce?

Let's play some songs from long ago. Maybe some guitars from your lost Spain.

Ay Federico, tia is gone and how will I ever be able to read your poetry again when she did not have hair growing out of her tongue?