She was a Bobolo grandmother / en el Nuevo Santander / who in her grief self-immolated / like the Vietnamese monks and nuns. / But in the 1700’s, no TV camera recorded / her death at her own hands, / protesting the invasion.

i was beaten in the key of revolt & bongo / unmelodic & bright i didn’t start as a bowl / but rather cries trapped in the husk of tamboobamboo / from the hands of slaves captured by French creoles

in the mountains, we remove our clothes                              those costume carcasses, charter atlas

rid ourselves of sorrow, its mediocrity                          its hesitant ache, savants of the massifs