Ghosts of El Salvador

In front of piles of rotting wood, stacked
On a cracked foundation, five ghosts float.
Four of them have the likeness of boys,
Their pale faces unwrinkled through their frowns.
They clasp their air-like hands together,
Stronger than tanks, although shadows of ether.
The fifth ghost is behind the others,
His black priest gown does not sway as the wind
Creaks through the broken structure.

Two young girls walk toward the crumbled building.
Everyone in San Antonio Abad says that the place is haunted,
That people have tried to rebuild the home
Only to find their work undone the next day.
The girls' steps become shorter and shorter.
Can you see anything? Gloria whispers.
The other girl shakes her head, grabs Gloria's hand.
Together, they step over what was once a doorway,
Pass through the five ghosts, then glance at each other.
Do you feel that? Gloria asks, looking behind her.

They can feel what happened those years ago in 1979,
The fear in their mouths is that of the ghosts.
They cannot see the four boys sweeping outside the house,
Cannot feel the ground shaking beneath them
Cannot see a small army and tank approaching
Cannot see blood from the boys' bodies, shots between their eyes
Cannot see Father Ortiz run toward the tank, palms out
Cannot taste the weight of the tread over his body
Cannot see the tank crash through the walls of the house
Cannot see the women inside the kitchen
Cannot smell the food burning on the stove.

But they can feel
The life and death of that moment, the cold reach
Of the Father's hand as he strokes their faces.

by E. M. Soos

La Luna

For the Co-Madres of El Salvador

She sits naked on a wooden chair. The specks of wood in her ass
bother her less than the black t-shirt that has been torn into four
pieces; one piece for her eyes, one for her hands behind her back,
two tie her feet to the chair. She cannot see the windowless
basement, the roaches that scatter across the floor, the three
policemen who stand in front of her. She can hear their zippers
slide open, feel her legs shake when their rifles hit her chair.
Tell us the names of the women. She lifts her head, thinks of the
pictures they had shown her on the wall, pictures of her friends,
companions, the women whose sons, husbands, had been given
electric shocks to the head, shot in the back, decapitated;
the women who were fighting to stop the disappearances. To you
they're all named Maria, she thinks. She says nothing. She hears
a pair of boots clunk closer. The man's breath smells of tequila
as he whispers in her right ear, You, you are like la luna,
the moon, with all its holes. The men untie her feet, lift her
from the chair, throw her to the ground. One man holds her
legs open, another takes his rifle, thrusts it into her vagina.
Her body slides with the dirt on the cold cement floor. Their hard
penises scrape the walls of her bleeding vagina, rip open her anus.
The moon hears her cries.

by E. M. Soos