Shining Path

They do not make the salute in the old way,
tight and purposeful as a mechanical lever,
a flag being raised, a crossing gate raised,
though the sun still climbs the coca crops,
lifeblood of the poor who work the fields,
gathering their pain and grace. The trees’
leafy canopy has grown too thick, where
sun beams broke through, bright lances
fail; the shining path of the future fails.
"We will protect you against the gringos,
and the corrupt regime." The old lines
fail. They listen with slack-jawed smiles.
Inside, to the fizz of American pop, their
girls braid hair; sons growl forth on bikes
to spray paint walls with rainbow slugs.
And languorous afternoon trysts, where
we’d have thrashed their half-clad thighs,
scrubbed powder and rouge from faces.
Then, if a cynic denounced the revolution,
we shot him. Simpler times. We shouted:
"The people united will never be defeated!"
No glow to these coals now, spent stones,
and my estate has shrunk, a peasant’s plot.
Consuela fetches me chilled Coca-Colas,
the sun dissolving on the beach. Splashing
rowdily, little children, chivying a red ball,
it nestles on the sparkling waves, where,
groping, their fingertips brush it further out.