Once when I was young, Juanito,
there was a ballroom in Lima
where Hernan, your father,
danced with another woman
and I cut him across the cheek
with a pocketknife.
Oh, the pitch of music sometimes,
the smoke and rustle of crinoline.
But what things to remember now
on your wedding day.
I pour a kettle of hot water
into the wooden tub where you are sitting.
I was young, free.
But Juanito, how free is a woman?---
born with Eve's sin between her legs,
and inside her,
Lucifer sits on a throne of abalone shells,
his staff with the head of John the Baptist
skewered on it.
And in judgment, son, in judgment he says
that women will bear the fruit of the tree
we wished so much to eat
and that fruit will devour us
generation by generation,
so my son,
you must beat Rosita often.
She must know the weight of a man's hand,
the bruises that are like the wound of Christ.
Her blood that is black at the heart
must flow until it is red and pure as His.
And she must be pregnant always
if not with child
then with the knowledge
that she is alive because of you.
That you can take her life
more easily than she creates it,
that suffering is her inheritance from you
and through you, from Christ,
who walked on his mother's body
to be the King of Heaven.
