A Division of Gods

while visiting Templo Mayor in Mexico City, I reckon:

walking the same land Cortés did/walked/tried to own.

in the shadow of his Cathedral,

I shudder.

Templo Mayor is now a museum.

are there records of Black people

visiting plantations and crying?

no history is interchangeable. I am grasping.

Templo Mayor is open 9AM - 5PM today.

what makes people want to tour the "end"

of something? Archaeologists

had to break the temple walls in order to learn more about them,

fracturing further violence.

across from the Cathedral, someone sells Aztec

designs on t-shirts.

no mention of genocide spiritual or otherwise

everyone runs

their fingers along the tourist attraction.

the Cathedral's holier house

waits its turn to sink

& my classmate remarks

on the tour guide's "good English."

I enter the Cathedral

so I cannot be afraid of it

but only after returning

to the temple. & I do not touch the stones—

each volcanic rock carried by hand to the construction.

each stone split

by European hand &

thrust into the Cathedral.

I don't know if you understand the birth of nations:

everything old is made to look new

or gone.

Source: We Are Owed (Grieveland)