the sunday archive

The Mexican Church

                             surrounded
by a hundred billboards
arches its back
                      in the sunday heat.
In the square
the young girls stand in groups,
                      brown toes tickling
the bare earth.

Five armed men stand near them.
They are the priests who have left
the pew-wrinkled thighs of the church
                      in search
of younger meat.
                      Their sombreros
block out the sky,
are vulture shadows
                      circling.

In summer
pick the bodies of the young girls
clean.
                      & the bones
lie there whitely,
                      waiting for
their canonization.

1962 or '63