MEXICO CITY

Casa del Poeta · Alvaro Obregon 73, Colonia Roma

David Huerta & a few others seem to know Rafael Guillén, former faculty of the National University who the gov't has identified as Subcomandante Marcos of the EZLN.

"I looked at his dissertation when the government published his name." She–who was it?–had her hand on my arm–"he quotes from himself in the early communiques." Now in newspaper photos familiar eyes animate the black ski mask–grey curls of his beard in High Times snapshots.

"...and you know his sex network in the jungle–?"

    –sex network?

"Yes. Women in bungalows. Everywhere. He is a great sex symbol."

If he's on Internet everyday & carries cellular phones through the Lacandon, how come the government hasn't caught up to him? A search party came on his tobacco pipe, still smoking from hasty departure (photo in the paper up north). What are USA military advisors doing down there? What sort of advising? Things could get clear if we had answer to that one.

"We do not know who the military are" says David over coffee. (Next morning.)"I mean, we know who the generals are. We know who the soldiers are–mostly conscripts from villages. But the mid-level officers–all the ones above sergeant–we do not know who they are. They're the important ones." I take him to mean the new military–the guys who go to the Academy–their loyalty might not stick with old-boy Narco-Democrat order.

    villagers herded onto a bus
it is doused with gasoline &
set aflame. Other side of the line
    they won't let journalists cross–

a few witnesses in from the jungle.