Monday, February 20, 2012

"His Story"

I was born under a crooked star.
So says my father. 
And this perhaps explains his sorrow.
An only daughter
whom no one came for
and no one chased away.
It is an ancient fate.
A family trait we trace back
to a great aunt no one mentions.
Her sin was beauty.
She lived mistress.
Died solitary.
There is a well
the cousin with the famous
how shall I put it?
profession.
She ran off with the colonel.
And soon after,
the army payroll.
And, of course,
grandmother's mother
who died a death of voodoo.
There are others.
For instance,
my father explains,
in the Mexican papers
a girl with both my names
was arrested for audacious crimes
that began by disobeying fathers.
Also, and here he pauses,
the Cubano who sells him shoes
says he too knew a Sandra Cisneros
who was three times cursed a widow.
You see.
An unlucky fate is mine
to be born woman in a family of men.
Six sons, my father groans,
all home.
And one female,
gone



In this poem Sandra describes her status in a Mexican-American family as seen from her father's point of view. It is expressed in Sandra's tone in the line where she stated "And this perhaps explains his sorrow, an only daughter who no one came for", this displays the father's unhappiness with the fact that his daughter is unmarried. She goes further into her families dilemmas throughout the poem. She talked about her aunt being known to the family as a mistress and dying "solitary", she also spoke of her cousin who was well known in her promiscuous profession and abandoned the family to be with a colonel and other army men. By the end of the poem it became clear that Sandra's father showed little hope in his daughter being anything more than a lonely woman. Its almost as though he saw this as being her fate the day she was born from the poets use of examples. Her father mentioned all the bad luck the women in their family had. She said that her father read the papers and a girl with her exact name was arrested for audacious crimes. Her father beilieved she was cursed and her outcomes would be no better than the women he talked about. I think this poem is very relate-able to people whose families are religious or have a firm belief in curses.

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