La Revolucionaria

     The shuttered window lay open welcoming in the suns' early amber glow.  Golden streams reflected off the brass bed which seemed to dominate her dark and dreary abode.  The room had a few pieces of wooden furniture as well which did not match. One small chair claimed a far corner and a triple mirrored vanity or coqueta reflected the full length of the metal bed.  The early morning also brought a hot, dry breeze which danced with the few remaining remnants of the lace curtain that covered the window like a spiders' web.

   She sat there on the edge of her bed with her back against the glimmering metal of that private domain.  Her tattered and soiled petticoat, with its many pleats and tucks and its opalescent river of tiny mother of pearl buttons seemed transformed into its pristine newness in this blessing of new light.  Her shoulders were broad, yet slender and they were a misconception of her frailty.  The straightness of her back was a testament to her inner strength.  Long and dark her now unbraided hair cascaded down her skin which was the color of Mexican clay. The tendrils caressed her with their own special embrace.  The partially unbuttoned camisole meandered around her dark nipples revealing a small round scar over her left breast, a momento from a former lover. 

   Under her second hand finery she did not wear the leather huarachas of her indigenous heritage, but the worn out and tired boots of a dead Federale which still had the remains of both horse excrement and human blood.  She lay there in all her womanliness, a true 'Mujer del Tiempo", a Juarista to death, a campecina by birth, a soldier by day and anyones' lover by night.