Embassies of Spain still press
lands of the New World
to utter the name of their god.
The Admiral stands tall in the capital city.
Colonial myth looking on
poverty’s timelessness.
As I write,
babies battle with congested lungs
in the ghetto.
So, all this talk of freedom
was meant to free
whose chest?
I have seen the hungry
rise with the unchained,
street dogs
scavenging bones
thrown to the roadside
near the fountain of barbarity.
I have watched
none of it pause
in the half-promise of independence
steeped in the romance of
discoveries,
conquistadors.