The Cane Field Testifies Regarding the…

Pues es possible que I have learned to fear la lluvia

All of my saddest stories have the same beginning

Entiendes? One thing falls into another I am fallen

Into all the time Men enter me like rain

Swing the moon in their hands until I’m mud

I suck their boots beg them tranquilase tranquilase

It was an accident mostly to have lived this long

I regret the entry but what choice did I have

Men shove their weapons inside me and only I

Ever think to call them bastard All I have ever

Said has been blamed on the wind como una

Mariposa I am beautiful because I am surrounded

Guapísima I am cherished most by the blade

Yo soy la prima de la tormenta What rages

against me used to keep me alive entiendes?

Es possible que every storm begets women

I am only what memories were buried in me

So I can’t say what’s buried elsewhere

Una país is only as good as the saddest acres

Of its deception Nobody can tell you this

Better than la tierra itself That night it rained

They dragged them off the road El poder de

La tormenta es en el oscuro y los manos

I howled for a country I’m mostly made of ghost

Stories and rumor The men entered me

What choice did I have but to suck their boots

For this crime they have only ever called me citizen

I tremble when the rain comes De verdad

When the soldiers came back I mistook the headlights

Of the truck for lightning The thunder for acres of batons

Source: Poetry (December 2019)