Ngapandie

(a word from the Mazatec language of the indigenous people of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, meaning world in the sense of "in this world")


I cleared the kitchen table
set out the red bowls
with the incised pattern

poured strong coffee into one
poured honey into the other

I sat and waited for appetite
remembering the unwilling anticipation of having
my second ear pierced when barely one week old

poured my thoughts into the brilliant pressed gold
of my grandmother's earrings

let slip this thread of memory from her hands,
through my mother's,
into mine

I drank the coffee and whispered into the bowl with honey
that it would have to swallow the bitterness




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