you’ll find his sweat-stained sombrero

and charro pants, silver threads still

exploding into bloody sunbursts.

So much spatter drenching his breast

of white linen that you will never stop

seeing him slumped over his horse

at the entrance to la hacienda where

he was lured by a lie that would let

the doves loose when the cocked triggers

snapped all at once. Did he fall first

to a beggar’s kneel? Did he crawl,

fingernails clawing dirt? Or even then,

did he refuse to draw a single breath

on his knees? The fields of Chinameca

still smoke each dawn, each dusk. You

can smell the rot of despair, the slut

of doom lingering in the land’s scars,

in the armpits of his squat jacket.

You cannot enter his tiny museum

of betrayal, of the Revolution that never

turned its full circle and forget

what you witnessed—how easy it is

for a forward march to be hurled back,

for lids to forever shield eyes that glinted

like obsidian, shut out their sparks.

Does his stare still tear through you?

If you could have broken the glass,

would you have stuck a finger through

bullet holes, traced their circumferences?

Would you have lifted the rough linen

to your face? Breathed in a century of loss?

Does he stand beside you when you rise

to your feet each morning, whisper Tierra

y Libertad in your ear? Justicia. Will you carry

him out of that cage, let him live in you?