Ariana Leon Krieger

Earthquake Relief Work 

I step on the hill to the village, soil loose

Cracking in all directions like leaf music 

The bags of provisions we bring

Enveloped in the mounds of rubble

Oaxaca, The Isthmus, Juchitan- Lands of Matriarchs

a rubble girl Shifts her shoulder blade as it held her atlas

Under the collapsed arches of Juchitan, still striped

Pulled out into a family tent

her hair tossed, knotted and torn under

the green shards of fibers, tubes and shells.

The rubble girl digs for mother,

occupation—inheritance—once again, gone. 

“Mama Ya no llores,” she says__

I took a picture somewhere, I think 

Yes, in that dark wet afternoon where we camped with

Them under the tent, rain pouring, afraid to go into the concrete.

with falling cable wires

We were supposed to drop off the supplies and leave, 

Not impose ourselves as a Burdon to this Isthmus municipality

Before I go any further, let me tell you what the matriarchs gave us

A towel to dry our wet shaking bodies, warm coffee

The Zapotec word for People, was it 

Provisions distributed evenly. 

The rescue teams called earlier in the day,

They never came. But everyone was pulled from the rubble

A rock, perhaps it's a rock, juts out, two rocks

embrace each other, the shapes come to me easily,

an old stories in reflex—memoria, a people underground,

that is it, the people under-ground,

that is why the rocks cover them.

I forget to mention the aftershock, so much ground

Shaking side to side, as we tried to walk in straight lines 

It is too cold to expose her tiny legs,

the fish-shaped back—you must wrap her up for me

They will never reach me. I live underground, under the Pyramids,

under the benevolent rocks and forearms and

inside the tents held up by the women 

this could be a them, listen, look: across the sea