|
|
General Pinochet at the Bookstore
Santiago, Chile, July 2004
- The general's limo
parked at the corner of San Diego street
- and his bodyguards
escorted him to the bookstore
- called La
Oportunidad, so he could browse
- for rare works of
history.
-
- There were no
bloody fingerprints left on the pages.
- No books turned to
ash at his touch.
- He did not track
the soil of mass graves on his shoes,
- nor did his eyes
glow red with a demon's heat.
-
- Worse: His hands
were scrubbed, and his eyes were blue,
- and the dementia
that raged in his head like a demon,
- making the
general's trial impossible, had disappeared.
-
- Desaparecido:
like thousands dead but not dead,
- as the crowd
reminded the general,
- gathered outside
the bookstore to jeer
- when he scurried
away with his bodyguards,
- so much smaller in
person.
-
-
from
The Republic of Poetry |
|
