Poetry
She folded herself
into a small package, legs and feet
under her body, words
even smaller.
She carries
a message. In a language
I don't understand,
she tells us about parents,
about their small, folded children
all burning, red-orange and pink.
Of course, somewhere in all this
there is a flag.
My dearest aunt, Butheyna, is chopping beets,
chopping the shamander. Klush, klush
she wields
a gutting knife, the chopping board
is a plank from a dhow. Klush,
The saint descended
From her carriage to stretch
Her forefinger to a peasant girl
Whose face was covered with sores;
This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed upon the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
Light a candle for my memory
in a quiet chapel by the sea;
as day drifts into dusky night,
cup it in your hands and hold me tight;
And then there was the day the angels arrived/To collect all the medals from all the wars
All that's left
Is the funeral
And the reading of the will.
Another prisoner is executed.
Long live the VCR
And his and her king-size bed.
The Constitution is the hearse.
Apple pie
In the sky.
Bury the body
In a wooden box
Under the Southern cross.
Turn up the volume
Eat your ice cream
And read about it in the paper
But will you share the grief?
Give me an epitaph,
Freedom is now at hand
Having never come before.
Nineteen-year-old Rodrigo Rojas de Negri was beaten and burned to death by Chilean security police for participating in an anti-government demonstration in July 1986. Veronica Rojas de Negri is his mother.