MEXICO CITY, JUNE 20, 1995

(in memory of Abraham Polo Uscanga)

by Elissa Rashkin

bells don't ring anymore
in the churches or the marketplace
on highways, or through parking lots.
nevertheless, someone is dead.
you might have heard the shots,
thought of fireworks.
or maybe the sound, drowned
in a squeal of tires, a frenzy of horns
someone's inconsequential shouting.
nevertheless, someone
who said the wrong thing the
wrong way at the wrong time
is dead.

the tabloids avoid politics,
suggest suicide.
a crime of passion.
they will never bite the hands
that feed their greed.
no one sure of anything
if there were two shots or twenty
if it was last night or long ago.
nevertheless, someone is dead.

the authorities have stopped investigating.
there is no point in crying out
for justice. nevertheless
in the narrow streets
and in the plazas
where bells no longer ring
everyone knows;
someone is dead.

Note: Abraham Polo Uscanga, a judge from Mexico City, was murdered last year after refusing to issue an arrest order for leaders of the independent labor union SUTAUR-100 and denouncing corruption in the judicial system. The killing has not been solved or prosecuted.

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