In the Month of March

International Women's Day, March 8, 2025

I'm in Mexico, in the city of Oaxaca, eating my tlayuda with queso 
and tomato at the Mayordomo Restaurant on the zócalo when
I hear them coming, chanting, cheering⎯this River of Women⎯

all backgrounds, all ages, in purple, white, green, in street clothes,
in traditional huipiles, straight, queer, trans women and their supporters, 
flowing past the gray stone buildings, the banks, the cathedral,
the government offices, I see them from the restaurant's balcony,
surging, shouting, No se va a caer, Lo Vamos a Tirar, It's not going to fall, 
we're going to tear it down,

they are talking about the domestic abuse, the sexual abuse, the femicide, 
the patriarchy that is all too slow to persecute crimes, the numbers
that have more than doubled since 2015, women serially killed,
murdered by their partners, women who have disappeared, statistics report one killed 
every two hours, in this country that has ironically just
elected its first woman president,

and now the protestors hang posters of victims alongside shadows 
left by candidate placards, they cry their names:

Diana, Ingrid, Mariana, Fatima, Mariela, Debani, Claudia,
Laura, Valeria, Noemi, Liliana⎯

they carry posters with words of Audre Lorde, English translated to Spanish,

No sere libre mientras otra mujer no sea libre; incluso si sus grilletes son diferentes 
que los mios⎯I will not be free if another woman is not free, even if her shackles 
are different than mine⎯ They keep marching, marching, marching⎯

We keep marching, marching, marching⎯





Sarah A. Rae (she/her). Publications include her chapbook, Someplace Else (dancing girl press, 2020), and poetry appearing in Jet Fuel Review, Poemeleon, Gyroscope Review. Anti-Heroin Chic, and Naugatuck River Review, where her poem "After Totality" was recently named a Finalist in its 16th annual contest. Her translations of poems by Mexican poet Guadalupe Ángela feature online in the translation journal Ezra and in Jill! A Woman+ in Translation Reading Series. She lives in Chicago.