SYLVIA

by Elaine Romero

SYLVIA, WHO IS PASSED OUT ON HER ABUELO’S LAWN MOWER, COMES TO CONSCIOUSNESS.

(Dreamily) I saw her. She spoke to me, the Snowcap Queen. She came to me like a vision—blue and blue, standing on a tub of lard. And you were all there. Amy and Mami. Sorry, Abuelo, you weren’t there, but the rest of you were. She came to me and she said, “I am from the Andes. I am your Indian mother—no, I am your mestiza mother. I know the ways of our people, and we have always swum in rivers of fat and felt those little fat cells pulsating through our veins so we could feel alive again. That is our history. That is our destino,” she says. “That is the real dieta de la raza, mi’ja.” (Beat.) And she said no more lettuce for a while. Yuck. (Sylvia spits.) No more of that vile green leafy stuff until I bleed.