Sitting down for tea
with the First Lady, 1954
By Patria Rivera

The sepia photo captures my mother
in her one-and-only favorite frock—palm-frond
silk shift with a shirr of chiffon draping
the bodice—while the other women, artfully made up
in their pompadour hairdos, smart city clothes,
smile widely for the cameras.
        An afternoon tea with the First Lady
        on her first visit to a rice-farming town
        in the plains of Nueva Ecija.

The woman in the picture wants to disappear
into her shadow: she has never drunk
tea except to sip salabat with rice cake.
It is much too hot for an afternoon
of empty talk. Had they let her, she would’ve
stayed by the river to finish the day’s wash,
scrubbed off the day’s grime,
the full torment of strange faces,
with her work-scabbed hands.
But the presidential aides hustled her off
to the municipio to keep company
with the President’s wife. Photo opportunity,
El Presidente, recently proclaimed “Man
of the Masses,” knows how important
appearances can be: The First Lady spends
an afternoon with the local mayor’s wife.
        She wouldn’t let on how she survived the day,
how the sour camias soaked in burnt sugar
went with the well-coiffed ladies and their two-toned nails.
She grips a Spanish fan, a memento from her abuela.
She appears tight and vestal, her thin lips feigning a smile.

© Patria Rivera

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