Tierra de Sangre

Tierra

The earth is hot and dry

Cracked and secret

Clandestine

Taciturn

Red earth for red deeds

 

Sacrificio

Obsidian knife into flesh

Acolnahuacti drinks until he’s no longer thirsty

Sacrifice sustains all

The moon, the stars and the earth

It could have been

Quail or

Dogs or

Feathers or

Flowers

But no, it’s you, my dear,

It’s you

The eagles and jaguars

Breathe a sigh of relief

Today’s not their day

Now’s not the time

For the offering of butterflies and hummingbirds

Today, it’s blood from

Your tongue and

Your earlobe and

Everything springs from buried bodies

Parts are displayed

Painted, bleached and stored

Skin relics

Flayed divine

Bow down child

Go pure into the sun

 

Tierra

The earth is hot and dry

Cracked and secret

Clandestine

Taciturn

Red earth for red deeds

 

Los desaparecidos

Red is covered with green

Soil and grass to resemble pasture

But we poke through

There’s no hiding us

Our bones are

Blackened

Hardened

Elbows and kneecaps

Mixed with the metal of

Coins and buttons and rings

Los Zetos stops the buses

Check our phones and

Then we fight like gladiators

From ancient Rome

With machetes

Knives

Clubs

Whatever we can get our hands on

When it’s over

We burn and disappear into the earth

On la carretera de la muerte

 

Tierra

The earth is hot and dry

Cracked and secret

Clandestine

Taciturn

Red earth for red deeds

 

La canción de la madre

Was I the woman I intended to be?

Dutiful wife

Whore by consent

Victim by chance

The little girl I was

A ghost in an ice cream parlour

In Mérida

Wide eyed and vanished

Long gone

Now I’m in the hot red earth

While my insides explode

And on this border that I nearly crossed

I died before my baby

I could still feel her heartbeat

Drum drum

As the black

Rained down

 

Tierra

The earth is hot and dry

Cracked and secret

Clandestine

Taciturn

Red earth for red deeds.