Elegy

Elegy

Today after a military funeral, amidst the red,

blue, and ochre houses of the poor, helmets

of the top brass, when tears and laughter

rise above the white-capped Andes,

the last thing I saw in the rear view mirror

as my father clutched his chest

and drove me to the airport, fearing I would become

one of the desaparecidos, one of the nameless

statistics of the stadiums and oceans

or the visible ones, dragged around the square

of our town like garbage on the streets,

what was once General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte

is to become one with the air,

by fires that consume the body, but not the soul—

the gold in his teeth and his many medals,

curled into pellets rendered worthless by the heat,

his ashes scattered along the coast and lakes,

into the dust around the feet of the women

dancing the cueca, into the wine of the Malpo,

bread of Temuco, and I will die a second death.

Based on "One Regret: Pinochet Never Met Justice"

Tags: pinochet Chile Americas