El Tendedero (The Clothesline Project)

• Chelsea Gullo, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2022

Would her voice get sore reciting passion?

El tendedero, she’d write, put me on the wire.
On el tendedero, she’d yell, for I am nothing once I’ve expired.
The deep pinks fade off her clothes; merges to a red, dousing the pavement,
an engravement –
to her soul, mind and cheeks, as her tears shall not evaporate -
rather this same state, she’ll enter will never cease nor die.
Her spirits will pass through his hands, as her body remains in enslavement.
Her childhood frocks will become the bait.

Till they soon decide,
it’s time for her to be crucified.
To speak or to die…

To accept exile, or yearn to perish?