PESIRA

by Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard

At the airport, a megalopolis crowd churns by,

each person or family intent on their destination,

the minutes and hours guiding their steps.

A woman pushes my wheelchair to the gate.

She is quiet, steady in her task, her face taut,

withdrawn, but I ask her where she is from

because the cloud of her hair and her accent

speaks of a distant world. “I am from Africa “

she states. “Where in Africa?” I continue.

“Kenya, why did you ask?” she queries

with suspicion. As we go through security,

the chair is examined by an irritable guard

with an electric wand, and she is criticized.

I watch her shrug her shoulders

as if she were casting off the dailiness

of her trials. Then on the ramp to the plane,

I tell her I didn’t mean to be rude

with my questions, believing that everyone

is a story. She leans over and whispers,

“My name is Pesira. What is yours?”

“Marguerite,” I reply, seeing her face pulse

with an inner light that follows me

with its glow as we hold each other

across so many boundaries,

redeeming ourselves from invisibility.

** * * *

Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard is the author of 9 poetry books, two of which have won awards, as well as a number of non-fiction books on women and human rights, (Revolutionizing Motherhood; the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) human rights, social justice, illness and grief. She is a former professor of Political Science and Poetry, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Studies Program Brandeis U. Her latest collection of poems is The Flame of Life (Human Error Publishing, 2018).