Dust

Jerez now.
How many cities is that?
In four years of toiling for the Holy Office
I’ve been moved round so much,
it feels more like forty.

The shrewd minds who maneuver
this massive machine
don’t like to see us, the cogs,
stick in one place too long.

They’re afraid we’ll make ties.
That something will melt
our iced-over hearts.

But my nights don’t belong to the Inquisition
nor to anyone else.
There’s no way I’ll stay put in my room.

Vast as the castles “we” take over are,
somehow the walls between
corridors and rooms
are always too thin.

So at night, I go out to escape
shouts and pleas I’d rather not hear.
I sit in bodegas, or dark, quiet taverns
off quieter plazas.

I don’t wear my cloak on these outings.
I want to blend in.
I’m sick of the look people get on their faces
when they notice the badge that’s sewn there.
A sword and a cross. And an olive branch—
to stand for forgiveness.
The infamous sign of the Inquisition.

People ignore me. I try to write letters
to Mama and Papa, but mostly I listen.
The talk is conversos—what else is new?

How this person said that that person ate this.
How that person said that this person ate that.
How Maria went to the rabbi’s son’s wedding
just ten years ago. Or was it twenty?
No difference. She’ll still be condemned.

I drink wine while I sit. Don’t bother, these days,
to water it down—it’s not like I’m proud of the work I do now.
I snack on tapas of olives and ham.
I eat pork, of late, without a third thought.
All food tastes like dust
to me now.