Looking back now, I must have misremembered
Esperanza to mean “wild horse woman,”  the word
deriving from the Latin sperare meaning “hope.”
Either way, I could see it: a thousand grandmothers
galloping into dusk. Night being the dark horses
carrying off the day on their hooves. My grandmother
lifts her head & wind bows, shifts her legs
& a man’s knees buckle. Could turn a lover to a drought
with a single glance. Now, she returns to me as myth:
on four legs, scattering the wet earth behind her.
My grandmother calling my name which was once hers.
How she & my father’s mother crowned me in this name,
having never met. Two equine women running
as I have learned to run. The story goes: her presence
would remind men of their mortality. Until my grandfather
sought to subdue what others could not. I wish I thought to ask,
Give me a truth I need to survive. She would tell me,
Don’t worship men. What a waste of devotion. It’s been said women
have nothing of their own, not even what we’re named.
Call it a moonless clarity: how she passes through me
every time the dark unknuckles & the night loosens
its blue-black skin for stars.