El Salvador, 1983 & Blood Soaked Dresses, poems by Gloria Mindock

Somewhere, someone is mourning for the
body of a brilliant one.
Man or woman, it doesn’t matter.
The tears in this country, an entrance
to a void… shadows touching skin like frost.

A star fell north of this city. Armies parade around
in their uniforms bragging about the killings.
Dead bodies thrown into a pit, cry. Flesh hits wind, wind hits flesh.
How many dead? Finally, they are covered with dirt at noon.
All eyelids are closed.
No one knows nothing.
No breathing assaults to hold us. The bitter ash
weeps over the world, and no other country
wants to see it, tastes the
dead on their tongue or wipe away all
the weeping sounds.

Death crawls underneath this world and waits. Who will be next?
Three months ago, the soldiers murdered my two little girls. The bastards raped, tortured, and shot them in the head. Their screams were like bad music replaying over and over in my head.
I talk to them every morning, and my day is planned for me. At night, they invent my dreams.
My daughters are in a mass grave. Their blood soaked dresses engulf their exquisite bones. They were so pretty. Children, you were brave. You know the soldier’s love was only fiction. Your
scattered brains now interview the earth and the earth speaks. For a little while, I pretend they grew up. I love this scenario. Of course reality sets in. The place I stay at is between the living and the dead. Time stopped. Motionlessly, I hold my girls like a vine twisting up into the heavens. Alone, this gives me purpose…living in a ceremony, a paradise. Such a beautiful day, feeling the wind hit my face. I know it is a gift from the grave.