The Politicians

The Politicians

come
come here with full bellies
& shined shoes to the one street
of San Miguel, talking, waving
hands, their harsh gringo Spanish
shouted in the hanging dust
of the square

the men of the town
stand uneasy, aware of their hard
hands, the blue of the stranger's
eyes, their own mudcrusted boots
stiff with clay

they are ashamed these men
whose hands are strong with work & loving.
they listen. then go to the bar,
beer & red wine, juke box Infante songs,
his dead voice singing of a Mexico
which was sad, beautiful, but theirs
--riding free across a green land,
gritos on their lips & dead politicians
fall, one-by-one before their dreaming guns.

Keith Wilson

--both from Graves Registry and Other Poems
[New York: Grove Press, 1969]