13 August

Tuxtla airport
we hold hands at first daylight
two swaggering pistoleros with girls pass through the
metal detector
guns pushed into their waistbands

guards keep their faces averted

one pistolero's girlfriend eats a wet pineapple round
long red
innocent fingernails

And the mind turns to scribes
who called their stelae
tree stones

    spoke of planting
words for their dynasties

    scored name glyphs into ceramic vessels

    & drank cacao over poetry

    all of which vanished
in Bishop Landa's inferno

      a forest of stone

Gun glyph
airport glyph
luggage conveyor belt glyph
daily newspaper running with news items glyph
styrofoam coffee cup glyph
diesel fuel glyph
Elsa Cross poetry glyph
medallion Sor Juana glyph
glyph of first dream
glyph of the divine narcissus
convent and court glyph
vicarious love glyph
flight back to the capital glyph

Take it in like a translator copy it down

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