Poem #274 of 365

work out in a huipil
of brilliant colors,
with two shiny trensas
of indio black hair
trailing down your
back as you
pounce and pound
in the fitness room
like an urban
tex-mex soldera
of power and strength
with tawny shoulders
showing your muscle in
traditional ways

smoke the copal in your
incense burner with the
Buddha tiger lighting
your day on a
smoky path that
confuses you briefly
to test your muster,
to challenge your mind

work out in huaraches
with tire tread soles,
who can tell the indigena
that she needs to recycle
when her spirit is brought
up by cycles of past
ancestries which appear
to her as she blinks
with exertion,
squeezing twenty more
pounds of history into
a brain typically
weighing only 3,
the boys lift iron
weights but you can
impress with the
heft of your words,
the weight of your
wisdom, and bench-pressing?
she's small press
publishing and that's
no small feat

find your indigenous
pulse on the stairmaster,
but don't become its
slave, you have other
struggles outside the
gym which are gonna
sweat you, as you live
out a modern-day version
of the ancient stories
through brown open pores

and when the treadmill walking
makes your legs burn later,
remember the climb that
your ancestors had
up the pyramid steps,
in Tenochtitlan, Tulum,
glistening like buffed bronze
beneath the spotlight
of the sun's burnishing heat.

(after a mild workout at the community gym, wearing one of my favorite huipiles)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez