Before the destruction and the pale purple dust

before the start of that slow gathering of
             wounded ruins           

before the buildings of San Antonio Abad
became tiered cakes of far-off rococo design

before we realized that the Troubadour of Tampico 
lay somewhere beneath La Roma  

there was only noise.

That noise.

A surly tremor
a tuberous whine that came from far away and from within
the death rattle of a long and stifled yawn
             burnished machete
             voiceless voice

the sound chasing itself inside its very own
             throat.

Thus the before was born and thus born the after.

Inaugural disgrace with a dead man’s ring on its finger.

And thus the broken ones were born.
And born were the ants that carried off the remains
             little by little
And born again were the iridescent cockroaches flying
             from corner to corner.
The corners were born.
Angles of light where the light turned baleful.
Alcoves dripping with semen and with ozone.

That was the context.
There we were all born
             falling.

Spiraled shavings of helium.

Surrounded by soldiers
             gray like no other,
the city was a body curled up in a ball on the ample
             bed of its valley
             all full of pain
             tight with miracle
like a woman who’s bleeding from below.