The dancing couples revolve at an angle in the great brewery mirrors marked:
Cerveza Moetezuma
before the globes lighting the plaza die out at 9:30 pm sharp.
But this was
Villahermosa.
Lightning burns like mescal in
the throat of night.
The whisky priest skulks about the mountain roads where you are headed, at Chiapas or Las Casas, charging so many pesos per baptism in the illegal night.
With or without him thrive the false saints & miracles in these remote regions, pure homage to superstition.
O comfort of Poverty! O lie of Pleasure!
You recalled the hot seaport, your departure planned on the Ruiz Cano that dangerous barge which took you out over the Gulf of Mexico
away from the anger hidden in laughter, from the pistilleros lounging by the Presidencia.