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He was a man,
a mighty man,
a mighty man with a mighty taste to be satisfied and authorized
to be defined as a mighty man of might
might've been a hero but ended up being a god,
might've been Friday night's lover but ended up being Sunday morning's child,
but children born on Sunday are never beautiful ones,
so instead he had to be tough…
tough as dirt on toes, tough as a punch to the nose, tough as a manifested headache and a destiny filled with in god we trust.
As tough as thirteen stripes can be
if the thirteen stripes are painted red on skin,
I mean blood on white,
or is it the other way around?
Sometimes I get those confused,
just like freedom and gasoline,
or weapons and liberty,
but not like faith and disease
everybody knows about those two,
the kind of air that they breathe
the kind of empty that they bring
or at least he did...
he used them both to liberate and educate,
to give the gentle savages a second better chance,
to forget about their buffalo and their grizzly bears,
the ones he roped for entertainment
and dismembered as the last recourse before preemptive warfare,
the kind of fare you fare against the unfair,
the unjust,
the ones who refused to recognize in him the Midas touch.
They did not welcome his entrance through the backdoor
so he had to sneak in, smeared in hunger and holydays;
once inside, he went to the back
all the way to the garage where he found fifty stars with a price tag;
one hundred and sixty eight dollars each,
or four oh five and ninety cents for a pack of fifteen;
so he dropped eight eleven and eight
cause thirty was all he was gonna pay
and the twenty that were left, he just took them all the same,
nobody was there to complain and the few ones that cried,
well they were either blind, deaf or dumb
so no one could see, no one could listen, no one could even pretend to care about the ones who were removed, relocated but not reincorporated, the ones whose only choice was to pray,
and pay
and fill their face with a blank stare,
a mouthful of peas,
and a handful of cotton-picking blisters.
Instead of answering questions
he spoke soft and carried a big stick.
Instead of questioning answers
he went on a diet,
lost two percent of his body;
eighteen inches of all he had below the waist
and twenty per every cent
of the slightly darker shade of grey above his belly.
then…to make up for the loss
he swallowed whole forty acres worth of mules
washed it all down with a Committee on Public Information
and finished it all off with a slice of pie that will forever live in infamy...
a date that will forever live in infamy...
a mark, a scar, a tear, a canal, a lie, a trial; this one's down, bring in another; that one's down bring in another; this one's down again,
bring in another,
bring in another,
bring in another,
bring in one—that will fight—the good fight—the fair fight—the cold fight—better yet
just bring in the one—who will fight...
every single fucking fight!
Cause that's what he needs,
that is what he demands;
a drive-thru lover, a serial sodomizer—colonizer—a suicide fucker; who would fuck anything even with a bomb strapped around the chest, unless of course the bomb is meant for him,
but then again,
who are we to understand,
who are we to criticize,
who are we ostracize,
such a mighty man,
such a mighty man of might
might've been a hero,
but ended up being
just another fucking god!
León De la Rosa is Gabriela's husband, Laura & Gustavo's son, Ardilla and Alejo's brother, a videomaker, a We3Bean, and a faculty member at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez. Check out his Spanish-language blog.