Love in a Time of War

Wrapped in a teal blue Turkish shawl I sit against the concrete wall colored adobe sand and bright rose. I don't know why I am here in the unrelenting sun with my pale Irish skin and lack of Spanish.

The mariachi band begins to sing. Gilbert's horn rises to the Mexican sky. At the sight of a child dancing the old woman next to me cries. I place my hand on her hand, smile. We are in a dry land called the hind leg of the dog, eighty miles west of Juarez and El Paso.

Marcelina, a Tarahumara weaver woman fingers my shawl the way women weavers do. We both nod at its fine work. I say, Turkey, meaning some woman in Turkey, who is somehow our sister, wove it. Marcelina stares. I say, near Iraq. Why do I even mention Iraq, but I do. Marcelina smiles, not understanding my language. I put my hand on her hand. She puts her other hand over mine. Now four children are circle dancing, then spinning and spinning in folds of white muslin.

Somewhere, somehow I lost a supporting part of myself, this thing called language, another called love. In a dream my friend is sewing back on the fallen off hind leg of her dog. Her husband tells me I have forgotten I am a woman who is still lovable.

I don't know the meaning of love anymore, either in its giving or receiving. Osvaldo, my new godson, is eight years old and we both know we are now somehow related. "¡Hola, Osvaldo!" My hands touch his hair, cradle his face, kiss his cheek in the Mexican way. He looks up at me suspiciously. Two trucks of armed federale soldiers drive by.