WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them- selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground. May 1978
I was introduced to Carolyn Forche’ as an undergraduate at Drake University. This poem was the first poem of hers I read and it changed me as a writer, poet and spoke to me. It blew my mind and I felt it deep in my bones. It gave me a window into another realm of poetry. I was already a writer when I read this and an activist. Carolyn was a young poet when she wrote this and I was a young poet when I came upon her work at Drake – I had very good teachers. I have spent my whole career with her as the shining example of what a writer can do on the page melting heart and body and breath on the page. I LOVE all her work and follow her. When I had the chance to meet her in Milwaukee I felt like my whole life had pointed me in this direction, and we know some of the same poets from IAIA where I went to graduate school. I feel so blessed to have been hugged by her. I gave her my books and told her how I modeled by first book, The Force Your Face Carries, after her book, The Country Between Us. I teach this poem often and come back to it again and again. I know our lives are hard right now. We can get through this though our brothers and sisters across the globe have dealt with much more. Our ancestors have endured. We can too.
Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.
