Sarah Marquez
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Sarah Marquez (she/her) is an MA candidate at Southern New Hampshire University. She is based in Los Angeles and has work published and forthcoming in various magazines and journals, including Amethyst Review, Capsule Stories, Crêpe & Penn, Ink&Nebula, Peculiars Magazine and Royal Rose. When not writing, she can be found reading for Periwinkle Magazine, sipping coffee, or tweeting @Sarahmarissa338.
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Here's a Lie: We Were Rich Once
inspired by Emily Dickinson
A lemon tree knew our backyard better
than us. It produced more fruit than we
could swallow whole.
The sun rose, ribbon by ribbon, though we
were dying. You tucked me into your side,
more bone than skin.
Hands folded like a bridge between our bodies,
we said a prayer.
We settled our grumbling bellies
with bitterness– the juices of a bruised lemon.
My flat voice praising God
was a sign
of my readiness to die.
But you said not yet…
You wanted tomorrow,
you wanted a smile to fall from the sky.
*
We sold everything we owned, sewed coins
into the folds of our clothes, so we wouldn’t go hungry,
but we kept the lemon tree.
It would not be moved.
It stood, sentry, waiting for a miracle to come.
We got up, left home and the tree, and walked–
for miles
down the desert road, till our feet blistered,
and sweat mixed with the dust
in our eyes.
We found a mason and asked him to build us a wall.
We found a field and asked the farmer tending it
for two bags of rice and beans.
In our white dresses, hanging
like a final curtain across our waning shoulders,
we commanded attention. They could not look away.
“Okay,” they said, “but you better pay us back.”
*
Home again, we sold the goods at market,
to hunch-backed women, wives wearing cuffs
around their wrists. They spent
their best years in the kitchen,
burning the worst of their feelings in the fire,
the earth-bound flame of an adobe oven.
When it was all gone, except for the little we saved
for ourselves,
we returned to the mason and the farmer and paid
our debts,
then asked for more.
Back and forth we went, until our desperation, our hunger,
grew.
Soon, we had a business.
A new roof over our heads.
Four thick walls,
to keep the world out
and our good fortune in.
*
One day, a man appeared–
a statue in the shade of the lemon tree,
looking for work.
He knew how to bake bread.
His fresh hands, two round loaves, were calloused
but warm.
We gave him a cup of lemonade, which he drank
as well as his brown skin
drank in the day-shine.
We gave him space to open a bakery, to make
as much bread as he liked.
He smiled, and I swear I saw the clouds part,
and blue sky open
and close like a mouth.
A lemon tree knew our backyard better
than us. It produced more fruit than we
could swallow whole.
The sun rose, ribbon by ribbon, though we
were dying. You tucked me into your side,
more bone than skin.
Hands folded like a bridge between our bodies,
we said a prayer.
We settled our grumbling bellies
with bitterness– the juices of a bruised lemon.
My flat voice praising God
was a sign
of my readiness to die.
But you said not yet…
You wanted tomorrow,
you wanted a smile to fall from the sky.
*
We sold everything we owned, sewed coins
into the folds of our clothes, so we wouldn’t go hungry,
but we kept the lemon tree.
It would not be moved.
It stood, sentry, waiting for a miracle to come.
We got up, left home and the tree, and walked–
for miles
down the desert road, till our feet blistered,
and sweat mixed with the dust
in our eyes.
We found a mason and asked him to build us a wall.
We found a field and asked the farmer tending it
for two bags of rice and beans.
In our white dresses, hanging
like a final curtain across our waning shoulders,
we commanded attention. They could not look away.
“Okay,” they said, “but you better pay us back.”
*
Home again, we sold the goods at market,
to hunch-backed women, wives wearing cuffs
around their wrists. They spent
their best years in the kitchen,
burning the worst of their feelings in the fire,
the earth-bound flame of an adobe oven.
When it was all gone, except for the little we saved
for ourselves,
we returned to the mason and the farmer and paid
our debts,
then asked for more.
Back and forth we went, until our desperation, our hunger,
grew.
Soon, we had a business.
A new roof over our heads.
Four thick walls,
to keep the world out
and our good fortune in.
*
One day, a man appeared–
a statue in the shade of the lemon tree,
looking for work.
He knew how to bake bread.
His fresh hands, two round loaves, were calloused
but warm.
We gave him a cup of lemonade, which he drank
as well as his brown skin
drank in the day-shine.
We gave him space to open a bakery, to make
as much bread as he liked.
He smiled, and I swear I saw the clouds part,
and blue sky open
and close like a mouth.
Commentary
Sarah on "Here's a Lie: We Were Rich Once":
This poem is inspired by a true story that takes place in Mexico City in the late 1800’s before the Mexican Revolution. My great-great grandmother came from a wealthy family. She, along with her brother and several sisters, lived in a big corner house. But their parents had died, and the family had run through their inheritance. So, they were poor, and to get by they were forced to sell everything they owned. This left them with little but a few animals and a lemon tree. To keep up their strength, they would regularly make and drink lemonade. A time came, however, when they were down to the last of the animals and time was running out, but not the hope the family was clinging to. They were very prayerful and still had each other to rely on. So, although things were bad, my great-great grandmother did not let them get worse. She was the youngest, but the most determined and ambitious. One morning, she came up with the idea to turn her family home into a storefront. Because traveling far was not easy, she was able to make a business out of selling merchandise to the people of the city. One day, she encountered a man who was a baker. He looked strong and reliable, though he was young. She invested in him and established the first bakery in Mexico City. Eventually, she married the man and expanded the business. This is how she became one of the wealthiest women at the time.
When I first heard this story, it made me think a lot about how struggles shape us, help us tap into our hidden potential. And how while we are living, and before we die, we go about leaving our mark on the world. My great-great grandmother left a significant mark. Her triumph over dying determines that miracles are made to happen.
To help me tell this interpretation of the story, I turned to the words of Emily Dickinson in, “A Day.” I love how this poem meditates on life and death by portraying vivid images of the rising and setting sun. I wanted to mimic its style of storytelling in “Here’s a Lie: We Were Rich Once,” which explores the same themes. This is why there are images of the sun and sky.
I wrote the poem in three days. The original draft took a horizontal form to resemble a prose poem, but during editing I realized that the poem wanted a vertical form. So, I attempted several rewrites, wherein I played with line breaks and the blank space on the page until I was satisfied.
Assistant Editor Jeni De La O on "Here's a Lie: We Were Rich Once":
“Here’s a Lie: We Were Rich Once” is a poem for 2020. Here, Sarah Marquez presents us with a narrator who has a clear insight to the past, a razor sharp understanding of the present, and the discernment to see how these elements will shape the future.
Marquez positions us as the reader in familiar terrain: tourists, adventurers by proxy—consumers—and in that comfort zone of suspended incredulity she pulls the shades and let’s in the sun. “Here’s the Lie. . .” does away with rose-colored storytelling and gives us—even in this fable, a dose of reality—something missing from too many an allegory, too often—the dirt on the potato, the grit. Marquez shows us the willingness to both part with and define oneself by boundaries as a measure of worth and it feels anything but played out.
In this piece we see the borders of a country we collectively imagine every December 31st as the lights dim on what we have accomplished and our minds turn towards the work to be done. And the way Marquez tells it, even when life gives you lemons. . . .
This poem is inspired by a true story that takes place in Mexico City in the late 1800’s before the Mexican Revolution. My great-great grandmother came from a wealthy family. She, along with her brother and several sisters, lived in a big corner house. But their parents had died, and the family had run through their inheritance. So, they were poor, and to get by they were forced to sell everything they owned. This left them with little but a few animals and a lemon tree. To keep up their strength, they would regularly make and drink lemonade. A time came, however, when they were down to the last of the animals and time was running out, but not the hope the family was clinging to. They were very prayerful and still had each other to rely on. So, although things were bad, my great-great grandmother did not let them get worse. She was the youngest, but the most determined and ambitious. One morning, she came up with the idea to turn her family home into a storefront. Because traveling far was not easy, she was able to make a business out of selling merchandise to the people of the city. One day, she encountered a man who was a baker. He looked strong and reliable, though he was young. She invested in him and established the first bakery in Mexico City. Eventually, she married the man and expanded the business. This is how she became one of the wealthiest women at the time.
When I first heard this story, it made me think a lot about how struggles shape us, help us tap into our hidden potential. And how while we are living, and before we die, we go about leaving our mark on the world. My great-great grandmother left a significant mark. Her triumph over dying determines that miracles are made to happen.
To help me tell this interpretation of the story, I turned to the words of Emily Dickinson in, “A Day.” I love how this poem meditates on life and death by portraying vivid images of the rising and setting sun. I wanted to mimic its style of storytelling in “Here’s a Lie: We Were Rich Once,” which explores the same themes. This is why there are images of the sun and sky.
I wrote the poem in three days. The original draft took a horizontal form to resemble a prose poem, but during editing I realized that the poem wanted a vertical form. So, I attempted several rewrites, wherein I played with line breaks and the blank space on the page until I was satisfied.
Assistant Editor Jeni De La O on "Here's a Lie: We Were Rich Once":
“Here’s a Lie: We Were Rich Once” is a poem for 2020. Here, Sarah Marquez presents us with a narrator who has a clear insight to the past, a razor sharp understanding of the present, and the discernment to see how these elements will shape the future.
Marquez positions us as the reader in familiar terrain: tourists, adventurers by proxy—consumers—and in that comfort zone of suspended incredulity she pulls the shades and let’s in the sun. “Here’s the Lie. . .” does away with rose-colored storytelling and gives us—even in this fable, a dose of reality—something missing from too many an allegory, too often—the dirt on the potato, the grit. Marquez shows us the willingness to both part with and define oneself by boundaries as a measure of worth and it feels anything but played out.
In this piece we see the borders of a country we collectively imagine every December 31st as the lights dim on what we have accomplished and our minds turn towards the work to be done. And the way Marquez tells it, even when life gives you lemons. . . .
