So, like, what are you?

I am my mother’s daughter

I am my mother’s mother’s daughter

I am my mother’s mother’s mother’s daughter

Tengo a Claudia en mi sangre

A Susana

Emma y a las demás

(Que nunca conocí en persona)

Pero las siento en mi paso

De extraterrestre en la nieve que

Susana

Emma y ellas

Nunca conocieron en vida

Nunca se imaginaron cómo duelen los huesos del frío

En una tierra sin ancestros de tierra

Mis ancestras las cargo en mi sangre

Me dieron mis ojos

Mi boca

Mis oídos

Mis manos

Mis pies

Las cargo en mi sangre

These women breathe in me

Their salt on their wrinkled hands

Their wrinkled faces from the sun

Their wrinkled fists from their luchas

En sus dimensiones de selva

De tierra caliente que ruge en mis venas

Que ruge en mis palabras porque siempre quisieron escribir

Pero en el campo no había papel

Y criar hijos y cocinar no da tiempo para boberías

And school was getting married

Managing a household

Managing their faces because tears are private

Llorar te hace débil

Y ellas tienen que ser fuertes por sus hijos y sus luchas

Que no cobijan sueños bohemios porque la vida real es dura

And the act of writing poetry is a privilege

Lucharon para que un día una de ellas

La hija de la hija

De la hija

De la hija

Could one day write and write and write

And cry and fight and shut the men up

Ellas no pensarían que alguna de su sangre

Hablaría en lenguas extraterrestres

I don’t even think they’d imagine their child

Would have un gato indoors

Would live with a man without a priest’s blessing

Would speak these tongues

These codes

And forget el patriotismo tricolor

Pero mujeres

Las llevo en la sangre y me cantan when I roar

Angela Pico is a poet in Spanish, English and Spanglish. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship and the Stanley Award. She is a PhD candidate in US Latino Literature at the University of Maryland, where she is an instructor of US Latino Literature and Creative Writing. She received her BA in Romance Languages and Literatures from Pomona College, and she also has an MA in French and Francophone World Studies from the University of Iowa. Angela writes poetry, prose and children’s stories. She has performed her work in Iowa City, Chicago and Washington DC. She is also a trained visual artist who has marketed her artwork in the Washington DC area. She was born in Bogota, Colombia and grew up in Western North Carolina.