WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.830 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.830 --> 00:00:05.850 align:middle line:90% Holy Heat, Semana Santa Spa. 00:00:05.850 --> 00:00:08.700 align:middle line:84% Two words you need to at the end of the poem-- 00:00:08.700 --> 00:00:09.960 align:middle line:90% petate and pop. 00:00:09.960 --> 00:00:15.450 align:middle line:84% Both mean mat as in what you lay on a floor or a grid. 00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:21.285 align:middle line:84% Petate is mat in Spanish, and Nahua pop is mat in Maya. 00:00:21.285 --> 00:00:28.980 align:middle line:90% 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:31.070 align:middle line:90% Holy Heat. 00:00:31.070 --> 00:00:33.830 align:middle line:84% At the table in the Queens Korean spa restaurant 00:00:33.830 --> 00:00:37.220 align:middle line:84% during Easter spring break, Ma was remembering Semana Santa 00:00:37.220 --> 00:00:40.220 align:middle line:84% in Honduras, how they couldn't do anything from Wednesday 00:00:40.220 --> 00:00:43.370 align:middle line:84% to Friday because they were remembering how Christ suffered 00:00:43.370 --> 00:00:47.270 align:middle line:84% in this time, how he was captured, how he was crucified. 00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:49.010 align:middle line:84% They couldn't even pick up a broom 00:00:49.010 --> 00:00:52.370 align:middle line:84% to perform the cleaning penance they enjoyed so well. 00:00:52.370 --> 00:00:56.570 align:middle line:84% They sat there in the heat with the memory of an old story. 00:00:56.570 --> 00:00:59.640 align:middle line:84% From the table, she watched amazed, all these people, 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:01.490 align:middle line:84% including herself now, who didn't 00:01:01.490 --> 00:01:04.700 align:middle line:84% stop all they were doing during the days Christ suffered. 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:08.180 align:middle line:84% I asked her what about before Christ, what did they do then, 00:01:08.180 --> 00:01:10.790 align:middle line:84% and she remembered the little bit of school she had where they 00:01:10.790 --> 00:01:14.720 align:middle line:84% told her about el puesto del sol, the position of the sun, 00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:18.430 align:middle line:84% and un dios de maíz, a god of corn. 00:01:18.430 --> 00:01:22.197 align:middle line:84% I've never heard her remember a God that wasn't Christ. 00:01:22.197 --> 00:01:24.530 align:middle line:84% The kitchen called our number, and I picked up our order 00:01:24.530 --> 00:01:26.620 align:middle line:90% from the counter. 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:30.460 align:middle line:84% After we ate, we went to sweat in the rooms of gold and jade. 00:01:30.460 --> 00:01:33.280 align:middle line:84% "All I think about is your father here," she said. 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:36.790 align:middle line:84% Because he worked with stones and gems, I answered in my head, 00:01:36.790 --> 00:01:40.450 align:middle line:84% because we were the Maya, and jade was our gold, I imagined. 00:01:40.450 --> 00:01:44.590 align:middle line:84% "Para los riñones," she went on, these stones, this heat 00:01:44.590 --> 00:01:46.880 align:middle line:84% might have helped the kidneys that failed him, 00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:50.440 align:middle line:84% but he wouldn't take care, get air, leave the house, 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:55.060 align:middle line:84% come to a place like this, give his body some relief. 00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:58.030 align:middle line:84% She sat up in the domed sauna, eyes closed, 00:01:58.030 --> 00:02:00.040 align:middle line:84% belly unfolding beneath her, and I 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:01.840 align:middle line:84% saw that she looked like my brother, 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:03.850 align:middle line:84% that he looked like her, that I looked 00:02:03.850 --> 00:02:08.050 align:middle line:84% like them, that we are this tribe of bellies unfolding. 00:02:08.050 --> 00:02:10.570 align:middle line:84% She sat up in the jade room, sweat 00:02:10.570 --> 00:02:15.280 align:middle line:84% dripping out memory, vessel emptying on a straw mat, petate, 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:18.430 align:middle line:90% pop, mat in the matrix of time. 00:02:18.430 --> 00:02:22.390 align:middle line:84% One position in the universe, ancients charting a figure 00:02:22.390 --> 00:02:26.620 align:middle line:84% on a mat as a point on a grid, one point in a domed hut 00:02:26.620 --> 00:02:29.400 align:middle line:90% remembering, releasing.