<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Not for Him the Fiery Lake of the False Prophet</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.... They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists."</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">- Donald Trump, June 16, 2015</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">They woke him up by pissing in his face. He opened his mouth</div><div class="">to scream in Spanish, so his mouth became a urinal at the ballpark.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Scott and Steve: the Leader brothers, celebrating a night at Fenway,</div><div class="">where the Sox beat the Indians and a rookie named Rodríguez spun</div><div class="">the seams on his changeup to hypnotize the Tribe. Later that night,</div><div class="">Steve urinated on the door of his cell, and Scott told the cops why</div><div class="">they did it: Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">He was a Mexican in a sleeping bag outside JFK station on a night</div><div class="">in August, so they called him a wetback and emptied their bladders</div><div class="">in his hair. In court, the lawyers spoke his name: Guillermo Rodríguez,</div><div class="">immigrant with papers, crop-picker in the fields, trader of bottles</div><div class="">and cans collected in his cart. Two strangers squashed the cartilage</div><div class="">in his nose like a can drained of beer. In dreams, he would remember</div><div class="">the shoes digging into his ribcage, the pole raked repeatedly across</div><div class="">his cheekbones and upraised knuckles, the high-five over his body.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Donald Trump was right, said Scott. And Trump said: The people</div><div class="">that are following me are very passionate. His hands fluttered</div><div class="">as he spoke, a demagogue’s hands, no blood under the fingernails,</div><div class="">no whiff of urine to scrub away. He would orchestrate the chant</div><div class="">of Build That Wall at rally after rally, bellowing till the blood rushed</div><div class="">to his face, red as a demagogue in the grip of masturbatory dreams:</div><div class="">a tribute to the new conquistador, the Wall raised up by Mexican hands,</div><div class="">Mexican hair and fingernails bristling in the brick, Mexican blood</div><div class="">swirling in the cement like raspberry syrup on a vanilla sundae.</div><div class="">On the Cinco de Mayo, he leered over a taco bowl at Trump Tower.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Not for him the fiery lake of the false prophet, reddening</div><div class="">his ruddy face. Not for him the devils of Puritan imagination,</div><div class="">shrieking in a foreign tongue and climbing in the window</div><div class="">like the immigrant demons he conjures for the crowd.</div><div class="">Not even for him ten thousand years of the Leader brothers,</div><div class="">streaming a fountain of piss in his face as he sputters forever.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">For him, Hell is a country where the man in a hard hat</div><div class="">paving the road to JFK station sees Guillermo and dials 911;</div><div class="">Hell is a country where EMTs kneel to wrap a blanket around</div><div class="">the shivering shoulders of Guillermo and wipe his face clean;</div><div class="">Hell is a country where the nurse at the emergency room</div><div class="">hangs a morphine drip for Guillermo, so he can go back to sleep.</div><div class="">Two thousand miles away, someone leaves a trail of water bottles</div><div class="">in the desert for the border crossing of the next Guillermo.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We smuggle ourselves across the border of a demagogue’s dreams:</div><div class="">Confederate generals on horseback tumble one by one into</div><div class="">the fiery lake of false prophets; into the fiery lake crumbles</div><div class="">the demolished Wall. Thousands stand, sledgehammers in hand,</div><div class="">to await the bullhorns and handcuffs, await the trembling revolvers.</div><div class="">In the full moon of the flashlight, every face interrogates the interrogator.</div><div class="">In the full moon of the flashlight, every face is the face of Guillermo.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Martin Espada</div></div></body></html>