Fall 2007 / Spring 2008

La Plaza de las Tres Culturas, 1968

by Susan Zenker

Her footsteps disappearing
down lava stone steps, entice
us with the roasting of sweet
potatoes—their smell, a tease
like incense over church pews.
With cameras poised, we run
and trip. Along Insurgentes
the camote vendor wheels
a cart of wares, then whistles:
camotes asados, se venden.
Puddles from recent rains align
like mirrors through pulsing time.

Our camote vender's child
offers us warm tortillas,
and to the faithful who scrape
knees on cathedral cement,
she holds out bare hands. For loose
change, we dig into purses,
unto a face we have seen on walls
of temples we photograph,
in cheeks of painted warriors.
in bones of plumed serpents,
a promise of sun gods warming
our backs. A radio blares

(break)
static across a patio,
undershirts flap, and her whistle
to come and get it lingers.
To Plaza Tlatelolco
she leads us, a window to
a past where masses shatter,
where their machine guns rivet,
where soldiers splinter doors, tanks
blast into innocent kitchens,
drag off an oldest son—
a spatter of bullets pelts
her cracking walls with his blood.

And all day a mother begs
to bring us, tongue-tied—
home, to her kitchen table.