I am the daughter my mother raised to confront them

with grievance’s command.

I am the daughter she trains
to translate lightning.

I am the half-deaf child she assigned
to tone-deaf judges.

I am the girl
riding shot-gun to iron.

I am birthing feet first
with no mid-wife to catch.

I sprint, high-jump,
and fist-fight in her defense. 

I am a dialect
born inside her quietude.

I susurrate incantations
transcribing her rivered idioms.

She is rivered remembering,
and I am her subpoenas.

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“Rooted in family, community oral history, and oral tradition, the Lipan Apache women’s struggle to repel land theft and to dislodge land thieves from stolen lands is a major theme handed down. For my part, I’ve inherited these heroic, epic ‘herstories,’ and through frontline resistance I’ve carried these stories, told through poetry and legal briefs, to world courts. This poem gives a glimpse into the mother-daughter ‘rivered remembering’ in our ancestral village of El Calaboz (‘the dungeon’), excerpted from a new collection in process, titled ‘The Daughter of Lightning.’”
—Margo Tamez