we are not something to be fired in the air, something to be thrown away with the junk of history while other men gorge themselves on the glory, sitting at the recently overturned tables of state

 

we are servants who keep our ear to the ground, our terrain is the bowels of our master, here we are the wind and the earthquake, we are the desert and the  scorpion with its poisoned oil

we are that servile woman that circles the table of state with dignity still in her.

 with her face under a shawl to hide her proud features,

 we are she that sits the bowl marinaded with spit before the master.

 

the ones that leave the salt of our tears and the gall from our spleens in his slaughtered meat, the cloud of barbasco in his wine that leaves him panting like a poisoned fish  straining to piss out the fire in his groin

 

no, our way is not the way of soldiers,

 

ii

 

now bartolemo, he was fonding of cornering his maids while they worked & forcing himself upon them

. until the day his great fat body was glazed and stuffed in the old indian oven in his kitchen

he served many on that night, serving in turn those upon whom he had pressed his manicured foot,

 one can imagine how his wine must have flowed white under the moon, pouring from the shattered barrels of the family cellar

 

  & how they must have danced in the warm wind that comes like a hot blooded young man from the mountains, with full bellies and blood on fire from drink and song

 

one wonders, did he hear the women coming through the night, with steaknives  clamped between their teeth?

was he paralysed by some curandero drug. rolling his little eyes like a wild pig, gurgling

 

one can imagine delicate mouths taking little bites out of the succulent apple that filled his mouth & held his jaws apart

 

old bartolemo, he made good on all of sins

& instead of the campesinos growing wasted on their little trangressions against the good lord, they must have put on more than a little fat for his many evils

 

iii

 

over the barrel of a machine gun, you tell us you are no king..

that you are a man of the people.

 I must ask which of my ancestors

sold you the place on my back which you know occupy. 

 

 You have lodged yourself between my shoulders.

Your foot is on the curve of my neck. Your guns penetrate my sleep.

 

You laid siege to my culture, even my dreams. At night I dream

of the black madonna, her dress tight as a wire shirt around skin.

 

I see no compassion in her eyes, I see a pleading. I see her cheeks

wet with tears.