womens beyond border logo

BOXES beyond borders

El Voto

Veronique Simar
Guatemala 1997

This is a memorial to all in my country, Guatemala, who have never received a proper burial, and were not only insanely murdered by the army of their own country, but then piled up in clandestine cemeteries, so that their loved ones could never come and be with them.  

And the epitaph (THE WISH) reads as follows:

Oh! Please give us a tomb!
a tomb for our souls,
for our poor bodies,
so sore
and tough
from that volcanic lime!

We plead you,
we implore you, dear God, dear people,
dear brothers,
little brothers and little sisters,
give us a tomb,
a safe tomb,
with a shroud made of sweetness,
a place to console us,
a nice place,
to erase the infamy,
a beautiful tomb,
for us!