This is an excerpt from Jacobo the Turko, a novel in verse about an Ecuadorian of indigenous and Lebanese parentage who seeks the American Dream working a summer job on the beaches of Delaware only to be deported to Lebanon (where he has never been), abducted to Bagram, and ultimately confined at Gitmo.
“Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta.”
“Mother Earth Creatrix, witness how my enemies shed my blood.” last words of Túpac Amaru.
moons of gold on Andean slate
taitacuna rooted in earth
bake earth that bore me
bore my squalling huahua
rash Jacobo growing hungry as rain on dusty streets
hungry for new a hungry new
a world like all the hungry few
Rome for Spain for America
Incaic Peru for septemtrional Ecuador
septemtrional said Latin maps
(before taita passed and Turko took me on
for laundry dust accounts his bed)
where seven polar stars hauled the heavens round
our peaceful Quito kingdom thick
volcanic earth bearing papas choclo
Huayna Cápac conquering Sapa Inca
taking for triumph my namesake Paccha
Cara queen and numbered wife bore him
Atahuallpa hungry son
news news news Andean clouds unfeeling
abducting sunlight drag
erasing shadows across the cordilleras
on whose waves condors once
news ten thousand works of wombs
by Paccha’s husband stripped disarmed wading
in shoals of blood yahuar
mountain crater Yahuarcocha clouds unfeeling
news Spanish poxes racing Inca stones
knotted khipus reading death
on empire highways rivers
yellow footpaths lacing landscape
huaquiñánkuna
news court-spoiled Huascar
bivouac-hardened Atahuallpa
orphaned brothers brawl for ruins
molting armies on the march
news Atahuallpa legion triumphant
Spanish Cajamarca royal square,
one day’s horse pikestaff musket
nuestra historia autóctona to a halt
Queen of Papas and Choclo
Now Queen of Dead
news news news Túpac Amaru remnant dragon
dragged from forests elephant foliage
liana fingers clinging failing
beheaded
his queen parturient with revolutionary ghosts
enough
the tostadas are fragrant
with grains homefires earth rooted stone
beware Jacobo the jaws of a hungry world
