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Callaloo 26.1 (2003) 65-66



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Women's Work / El Trabajo De La Mujer

Thadious M. Davis


Paseo, through this calle
and out into this plaza
Plaza Vieja
de la Catedral de San Cristóbal
There in the slant of the sidewalk acera
There in la cruz de la iglesia
There in the circle of the bell
I see the figure of the hero
Martí
Maceo
José Martí Antonio Maceo
But I look for Celia
Ines
They are the women in the
Granma
The students women soldiers revolutionaries
Traveling by day
Traveling by night
Traveling by this calle—
to this square
in the center of the plaza
where 45 years later
I stand moving toward
them in the
feast of my eyes
in the stride of my step
where there I can
Transpose myself
make myself transparent
Thin as the soles of
my sandals against the rock
against the block
against the granite
against the present
against the mystery [End Page 65]
of the barrio in
Old Habana
Where the Catedral
Held the remains of
Cristóbal Columbo
where the statue of a
brown San Cristóbal—
patron of traveling
deposed
dispossessed
of sainthood
of rights to his miracles
of being to our meaning
and I stand here against all reason
playing my part like
the Lady of Guadeloupe
like the frieze milagro
Santa Barbara
like the Lady of Loretta
Nuestra Señora
and all who now are
gone
lost to us in
the faces of
Ines
Celia
Those who as women stood
as men with men in
the space occupied by
26 July's hombres in
the lives published by
Granma
and I think Paseo
Celia
Through Museo de la Revolución
through Sancti Spiritu
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
and I know the women
who wear the clothes
of hombres in combat
in struggle
in freedom
for even those who
walk this street
this day.


 

Thadious M. Davis is G. C. Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. Her new book is Games of Property: Law, Race, Gender and Faulkner's "Go Down Moses".

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