MEMORIAL DAY IN SPAIN
The water tastes like death in the Valley of the Fallen:
Franco’s cross casts a long shadow
Between the hills. How many mothers’ sons
Are stacked like cordwood in that vast basilica
Where roses, those old deodorizers, exhale
Funereal fragrance. Here the wolf and the lion
Lie down together: brothers in blue and gray.
They choked on mule dust and blew up bridges,
Wearing the delicate stitches of machine gun
Fire. Here the Olive barons of Seville
Do penance once a year for their Contra,
Their freedom fighter: Franco the Frog, he’s called,
For all the reservoirs he built that could not
Wash the taste of death out of his mouth.
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