And then here's the prose poem from Tiburtina.
It's called "Oppression and Milk, Anti-Climax."
I refuse to believe in poison
Since the Spanish conquest,
My nation has been laughing maniacally
through a gaping wound
It's almost always night
So no one can see the bleeding
Oh, my brother's scratchers of your own ribs
Like skinny winged piglets that grow restless
Because the daisy dealer is late
Oh, tiny fringe of a humanity long-termed fractious
Which I nevertheless saw coming like a mountain of water,
alive and dead at every instant
All powerful and yet so weak
Remarkably tough, while also porous
Only the fact of my belonging unified your two-faced soul.
Oh, beloved monsters
Lighthouses of the most manic firmament
Matchstick nail scratches in the air
See how there is suddenly room for you
Alongside my old and contemptible piece
The doddering housekeeper, who from this day on,
I feel obliged to kick to the curb
Forgive me
The poisons, they say, come in many colors
And can be as green as a red apple
This proves their complete inhumanity
And alienates us so thoroughly
That it's better to fall back on history
Rather than bleed ourselves dry on the salt of remedies
Who among you had a father?
We know that nothing remains pure but poetry
The blind madness of silver flowers, cylindrical smoke
The fresh rot of infinite vantages
One long ago afternoon, when my father brought me
a glass of milk
And told me I should convince mama to see reason
I was examining a photograph on the cover of Life magazine
Which back then didn't come in color or in Spanish
Of Winston Churchill looking like our Catholic pope
And blessing the world with smokey words of warrior wisdom
El Salvador is a country where the basilisks are friendly cave
dwellers
Their eyes mostly closed for our own good
Meanwhile, our hens are fierce
The hateful glare of all the world's hens
is borne out by their actions
And their brand of arrogance erupts into catastrophic crime
I drink the glass of milk cross-eyed
Thinking about a Humphrey Bogart movie
Where there is more than one poisoning
And everyone in the audience quakes
My father could have beaten Humphrey Bogart in any fight
One hand tied behind his back, eyes blindfolded, legs in a sack
It was the best glass of milk I've had in my life
Which must also be why I love you,
country of mine, history, perils, et cetera
So there's that one.