This month's poetry spotlight features "Five Peso Treasure", a poem by Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration Linda Mershon written during her time in Mexico with the Global Awareness Through Experience program. A single moment on the train becomes a lasting memory through Sister Linda's eyes.
Five Peso Treasure
In the end,
the chocolate bar fell
onto the floor of the train.
Stepping over it,
we got off at the next stop.
The begging girl, Lupita,
had three years of life.
A tattered red sweater,
frayed and soiled,
betrayed many who had worn it before.
She asked, with her eyes,
for me to fill her paper cup
with treasure.
As her brother, Alejandro, two,
and her sister guardian, Marisol, nine,
raised their voices in song
over the noise of the train.
She circulated with her cup
and her eyes.
She spied the half-eaten chocolate bar
in the hand of my seatmate.
She asked for it
with her hands,
pointing in supplication.
There was still enough “Lupita” inside her
to want
and to ask.
But not for long.
How many “no’s” will it take?
until she is gone
from inside the big mestizo eyes?
The answer for Lupita is no.
Surrender.
She has three years.
As she moved
toward the front of the train,
she turned—
looking longingly once more
at the elusive pleasure,
the Five Peso treasure
which would not be hers.
And then she joined her sister and brother
in song.
In the end,
the chocolate bar fell
onto the floor of the train.
Stepping over it,
we got off at the next stop.
