Hannah Donovan's Great Granddaughter
Makes Tamales
To soften them,
she soaks corn husks
in the bathtub overnight.
She grinds chilis to a brilliant paste
to fold with meat and masa
into pale yellow packages
tied with tiny husk bows.
She stacks them in her Saturday pot
like rows of Spanish prayers
to the Sunday Virgin.
On a bleached coast
halfway around the world from Dublin,
her kitchen steams with maize, warms
her daughters, their hair
the color of corn.
Barbara Sweeney
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