The Floral War 2:6:110-140
by @david-betten
MARÍA DE ESTRADA
Freeze, hussy! It’s your mistress bids you halt.
Let’s see what trulls the latest nets have trawled.
Not bad, sad slave. You’ll fit your new career:
A teenage tartlet to refresh their tents.
Don Alvarado keeps a natty ring
Pranked up with goads, whose stingers top its face,
To spur reluctant steeds through rocky rides.
You’ll buckle underneath such battery.
I hope your yelps won’t stir my husband’s sleep.
María de Estrada, at your service, serf.
I reign sole victrix of this manly camp,
For I’m not fit to mince and kiss my hand,
Like all those gingerbread girls back in Spain.
No, Cuba was a rowdy, lax frontier
Where I was raised to tussle with the boys,
And now stand champion in these warlike ranks-
For boundaries built up by prejudice
Are not reformed by mediocrities.
Once I have overmatched your Amazons,
I’ll force those tomboy squaws to nurse my brats-
If but a single, over-muscled pap
Can fortify the husky chaps I’ll breed.
Enter GARRIDO with baggage, and passes over the stage.
Look to your maidhood, miss, or be dismayed.
[to Garrido]
Hold, boy! You’ve got my bag of needments there. Exit.
MALINALLI
What gibberish! So much chin-music to me,
But something of her drift I comprehend.
I must assert my merit here. But how?
My sex? A trump card every girl here holds.
But what my prodigy at languages?
I’ll trail their chieftain, and my gift of tongues
Shall lift his veil unto this virgin world. Exit.