Suzanna Flor Holguín

Suzanna Flor Holguín lives in Phoenix, Arizona where she is a Licensed Optician. Her work has been published on the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada social media accounts, Prism book tours “Wonder within a Book” series, and Red Fez online magazine. Her poetry can also be found on her social media accounts, Poetry de Flor.

Alone with Michá

In the vastness of the Chihuahuan desert orange glow haze, there’s a foreign mud-colored girl. Willowy, she had been forgotten by her ancestors. She did not utter Spanish, English, nor could she hum in an Uto-Aztecan Tarahumaran tone but she had echoing ears and swallowing eyes. When left out alone in that green hacienda that wasn’t her home, she’d spend hours sitting still with books she couldn’t focus on long enough to decipher, daydreaming about rolling shapes and gestural brushstrokes. When the art around her would lay smooth in texture for just long enough, she could also see the warmth of her friend Michá, in fleeting moments throughout the day. 

Michá was a short and thick mukí with a low knotted bun who wore colorful layered skirts with thirsty brown skin below. Her shoes, a pair of repaired handmade huaraches exposed a set of feet that had traveled miles to arrive in this prosperous colonia. She was la sirvienta, the maid that was chosen by the girl’s giant and hard to impress light skinned and affluent abuela. The girl’s abuela had nine grown sons that all worked for their father and a husband that always let her know of her shortcomings as the woman of the house. She had no time to deal with the constant cooking and cleaning her creatures demanded.

Michá would fry heaps of fresh eggs while flipping dozens and dozens of tortillas in the morning. In the afternoon she dusted a parade of crystal and scrubbed worn navy jeans on the pink zote lathered cement washboard. In front of her patrona’s sons, she’d humiliate herself while chasing the disgusting bickering chickens into their cages and mopped miles of hard green tile on her calloused, deep purple knees. She managed all this while avoiding the feverish men that passed in and out of the casa on their way to the next dusty ranchito, in order to save her grace and not to upset their absurd wives. As a master at not existing, she would sometimes forget that blood pumped through her.

She never knew if she remembered herself instinctually or if it was the forgotten boney brown granddaughter of her patrona calling her to wake. She could feel the child's eyes pleading for her to hear her need to belong. Michá’s work was done when the sun began to blur and the humid sky showered the dirt roads below. She would then serve the mute girl a bowl of whole beans with a spoonful of mayonesa con limón mixed in and watch her eat without making a sound.

Afterwards, Michá would retire to her dark room at the end of the knotted halls in the corner of the hacienda through the blood red machaca room, and next to the cold stale closet where sprouting potatoes were stored. She’d pick up bold fraying threads to weave and hum to the shadows of her ancestors. This was the girl's favorite part of the day because it was the only time of day she could leave the gaudy estate, her coded books, her rambling mind, and feel the warmth of human kindness. By knocking twice, she had a friend and with a peeping toe and a quick shuffling on the icy concrete floor, she had warmth. Michá with a smile, handed the girl a bundle of thread to weave with her. Together they were forgotten and that’s how the mute girl will always remember them.