Stories From El Salvador: Roque

Feb 8, 2019
4:03 PM
Originally published at Stories From El Salvador

Abuelo Tanes y El Jute
By Roque A. Najera

A man so much a man
even in advanced age
refuses to use a cane
pushes away the help
and has never cried
even as my aunts and uncles died
in el Jute
from a disease
curable by pisto we never had
and by the social programs
that never came

He stares quietly through the bars of his house on a street he owns,
he controls,
that no Maroso can touch
because of the plomo
que nunca se le olvida

A man so much a man
who the world refused,
wasting away in gardens of the rich
yet fed us from the soil at our feet
and defended his castle with a corvo

Mi Abuelo Tanes
un corazón de campesino
pero de hierro.

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